


In The Shadow of Dragons

by persnickety_persnackety



Series: In The Shadow of Dragons [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca AU, F/M, If you're aware of the book this scene takes place after the masquerade ball, Jon Snow and Sansa Stark Are Not Related, Jon is a widower, Jorah and Doreah are both Mrs. Danvers in this, Lysa and Petyr are assholes in this universe, Modern Westeros, Not Beta Read, Sansa is a Tully orphan, Sansa is not as helpless as Mrs. DeWinter, but you may guess who it is, the previous Mrs. Targaryen will remain nameless like Mrs. DeWinter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickety_persnackety/pseuds/persnickety_persnackety
Summary: Sansa once believed that entering into a marriage of convenience with the widower, Jon Targaryen, to escape her cruel aunt and uncle was the best decision she could have ever made. Six months down the line, however, after a disasterous evening filled with tears and heartache, Sansa realizes that not only has she fallen in love with the man she married, but she's come to realize that he will never love her because his heart still belongs to the previous Mrs. Targaryen, the looming shadow that Sansa can never seem to escape. With her heart in pieces, Sansa realizes there's only one option for her left... to leave.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: In The Shadow of Dragons [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920445
Comments: 141
Kudos: 290





	1. Run

_“We’re not meant for happiness, you and I..”–_ _Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca_

It was the bright light streaming through her window that pulled Sansa reluctantly out of the clutches of sleep. Her head was rested on her arms that were folded on top of her vanity table, which had served as her bed the previous night. A groan slipped from her lips, past the sour taste of sleep that lingered on her tongue as her body made its protest in her choice of sleeping place with sharp aches and stiffness in her muscles and limbs. Her neck, back, and arms were the parts of her that complained the most as she struggled to push herself into an upright sitting position and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s rays. The ache in her eyes remained even when removed from the path of the light, and if that pain wasn’t a startling reminder of what had put her in such a pitiful situation, the reflection that stared despondently back at her in the mirror of her vanity was quick to remedy that brief moment of blissful ignorance.

Sansa stared sullenly at her reflection and gathered the evidence of how poorly her night had been. Half of her crimson-red tresses were still pulled up in the elegant hairstyle she had spent hours attempting to get just right, though one wouldn’t believe it based on the disarray it was currently in. The makeup that she had also spent a great deal of time trying to perfect was in worse shape as it was utterly destroyed by the innumerable tears that had fallen down her cheeks. The image in the mirror could have been conjured out of nightmares, and yet Sansa couldn’t bear the thought of removing it all because the girl underneath the chaos was probably in even worse shape.

She didn’t know how long she stared at her reflection in the mirror, contemplating how far she had fallen in a mere matter of hours. It was hard to believe that at this same time yesterday, she had been seated in the same place, preparing for a night she had been counting down the days for. Her heart had been filled with more hope than she had dared to ever let herself feel in years as she had allowed herself to picture a future that she had thought herself denied for so long. She was so unaware of the fact that those dreams and hopes would be dashed so thoroughly before the night could even truly begin.

A cursory glance around the room showed it to be in little better shape than what she saw in her reflection. She avoided looking at the costume dress that she had tirelessly put together over the past few weeks or the shoes that she had ordered special from King’s Landing to go with it. The items were strewn across the floor, and they would remain where she had hastily discarded them until one of the maids came to pick them up. Normally, she would have been scandalized at the thought of leaving her room in such a state for the maids to see, but the part of her that cared for such things was gone, beaten away by her embarrassment and self-pity. She didn’t even seem to care that Doreah would be able to take one look at her rooms and know exactly what happened and would immediately report her findings to her conspirator. It was all a part of a game, after all, and after last night, Sansa had come to realize she had been soundly defeated by her opponents, thoroughly trounced if her current appearance was anything to go by.

The game was one she hadn’t even known existed before she had stepped foot on Dragonstone, and yet she was thrust into it six months ago with no instruction or aid. Her opponents were well-learned in the rules, and they were merciless in the execution of their turns, whereas she had been floundering and clumsy in her poor attempts at playing. It was no surprise that this was the outcome: she having so little of herself left, though most of her opponents would say there was little of her, to begin with. Now in her defeat, she was left with only two avenues going forward: she could continue living in this place where she would be painfully reminded of how inadequate she was and how lacking she would always be in comparison to the one that had come before her, or she could slink back to the crooked arms of those who had already diminished her hopes and dreams over the past years with only a prayer that another rare opportunity to escape them would present itself like the one she had received at the hand of the grey-eyed man whom she had foolishly mistaken as her salvation.

There was a time that she would have said that she would rather die than return to her aunt, Lysa, and Petyr Baelish, but that was _before_ she had seen _his_ grey eyes filled with ire as he flung cold, stilted words at her through clenched teeth. A life being tormented and belittled by her family seemed like a paradise when compared to the way she had felt when she had been the sole subject of _his_ fury. Never before had she ever felt so low or humiliated than when she had seen the anger and disappointment etched on his face when he had looked up and watched her coming down the staircase in her costume. His jaw had been clenched and his fists had immediately balled into fists at his side as he had thrown cold, stilted commands to take the costume off. He hadn’t even bothered to explain his reaction before he had turned and walked away from her without so much as a glance back despite her sobs being loud enough for him to hear. Even when she had found out the reason for his disdain and tried to make amends, he had refused to even look at her and had dismissed her with a curt shake of his head while he diverted his attention to a nearby guest, ignoring her presence completely. He had not wanted her near him at all, and so Sansa had had no choice but to slink away to her rooms despite the party just barely beginning.

Of course, the reason for all of his anger would always go back to _her_ , the shadow of his previous wife – the wife he truly loved and didn’t merely pity like he did Sansa. _She_ had worn the very same costume that Sansa had spent weeks putting together for the masquerade, and it was _her_ that he had seen when Sansa had walked down the stairs. It was only the realization that it was Sansa and not _her_ that had infuriated him so amidst his disappointment. The realization had become clear: he would never see her in the same way he saw his dead wife. That ghost would forever have more power over him than Sansa could ever hope to wield.

With a sudden burst of energy derived from an abrupt determination to distance herself from the memories of the previous night, Sansa rose brusquely from the seat of her vanity. She moved so quickly that she upended the stool, sending it crashing loudly to the floor. Not even sparing it a second glance, Sansa left it there, caring little that it would serve as another clue denoting her fall from grace. Her mind was more occupied with what she was going to do from here. She had to use every ounce of what little resolve she had to follow through with her best course of action moving forward, everything else be damned. If she dawdled too long, she was certain her senses would most likely peek through, and she just couldn’t allow her mind to be changed, not from this.

Sansa couldn’t find her old, tattered carpetbag that had held the paltry items of clothing she had used while in Lys, so she settled on pulling out one of the new suitcases that had been purchased for her on her honeymoon. Guilt lingered on her conscience for taking it, but she pushed such feelings aside by telling herself that she would send money back to pay for whatever she took. A lot of her original underthings and stockings had been discarded since she had been in Dragonstone, due to their poor state upon her arrival, so she was forced to pack a few of the new stockings and slips that had been purchased for her, which she added to the tally that she would pay for later. Managing to find some of her old frocks and dresses, she felt an immense sense of relief that she wouldn’t need to take any of the new dresses and rich clothing, recently purchased, in the wardrobe. What few items she was taking were placed in the suitcase along with her original three pairs of shoes and a set of gold flower combs. The latter wasn’t something she had come with, but even in her sullen misery, she couldn’t bear to leave it behind. They had been a gift from _him_ on their honeymoon after all, and if she was going to leave with nothing else from this place, she would keep the set as a reminder that this particular time in her life hadn’t been just one long, strange dream.

Slipping into one of her old frocks and donning her old, weather-worn coat, Sansa quickly brushed out the curls and tangles from her hair and braided her long red tresses into a loose braid over her shoulder. She washed off all of the traces of makeup in her attached washroom – more than a little elbow grease needed to wipe off the dark streaks around her eyes – and reluctantly took in the reflection after. Her skin was pallid, veering dangerously toward gaunt, with her eyes, cheeks, and nose flushed red from the washcloth and the fresh tears she had shed while packing. Her assumption that she would look a fright underneath the makeup was affirmed, but she had little time to dwell on such trivial thoughts, especially when escape was the most important thing to consider. If she was going to slip away unnoticed, it had to be now.

Though there were a few maids up this early in the morning, Sansa knew she could avoid them fairly easily with their attention undoubtedly focused on cleaning up the dining hall and the ballroom where the party took place. Even though her night had been ruined before the grand gathering had even begun, it had still gone on without her, and she could only assume that the majority of the house staff would be focusing their attention on cleaning up the remnants of the festivities. So, on feet that were surprisingly quiet against the dark marble floor, she slipped cautiously from one shadow to the next down the hall of the family wing of the manor until she was finally able to reach the staircase that would take her down to the main entrance where she would finally be able to slip away.

Sansa’s steps felt a little lighter with every step she descended with no on in the house noticing her, but at the same time, her heart grew heavier and heavier the closer she drew to the door. As much as she tried to tell herself that she was making the right choice in escaping, that the alternative of staying was just too unbearable, a part of her knew that even when she made her escape, she would be leaving far more than her lavish clothes and jewelry behind. She was leaving a large piece of herself in the hands of the very same person who had crushed her spirits into dust.

Even in her sorrow, she couldn’t truly blame him for how she felt because he had never promised her anything more than what he had provided, which was still more than she ever thought she deserved. He had offered her a life free of her cruel aunt’s influence and her lecherous uncle’s unwanted touches, nothing more. It was her fanciful mind and inclination for fairytale endings that had overwhelmed her logic and her caution, leading her to fall in love with the mysterious Lord Targaryen with the hope of him learning to love her in return. Lysa had always said she was a selfish girl who was never satisfied with what she was given, and in this instance, Sansa hated to admit that her aunt was right. She should have just been happy to go along with the flow and accept the situation for what it was, but her heart had defied her. Now, it was shattered with only the promise of the lesser of two unbearable pains to look forward to in her near future.

When Sansa reached the large, ornate front door that opened to the stairs that would take her down to the beach, her hands were trembling, almost to the point that she nearly missed the handle completely. She took a brief moment to calm her nerves before she pulled on the large brass handle to open it to freedom. She never realized how loud the giant thing was when she had used it countless times in the past to come in and out of the manor, but when it gave a loud groan as she pulled it open, Sansa froze with her breath caught in her lungs and her fingers squeezing the handle to the point of pain. She stared behind her with wide eyes, expecting someone to come out and demand to know what she was doing, sneaking out with a suitcase full of her meager belongings, but after a tense minute of waiting with no one showing up to berate or question her, she finally forced herself to make her feet continue moving forward out the door. As soon as she felt the sun shining on her once again with the door closed behind her, she released the pent-up breath that had been built up in her lungs. She tried to make herself believe that the warmth on her skin was a good omen of things to come, that she was making the right decision, but her heart still throbbed painfully inside her chest.

If Sansa’s descent down the stairs of the manor had felt like an eternity, her descent down the giant stone steps, leading to the beach, felt more like a single blink of an eye, which given the enormity of the construction was a great feat to achieve. The speed was mostly attributed to the fact that her feet were working on autopilot. She had felt the first stirrings of doubt as soon as she had closed the large front door behind her, and so for her own self-preservation, she had forced her mind into a sort of limbo where her body functioned more on instinct rather than reaction. Where caution would have had her pausing at the older parts of the stairway that were crumbling from age, desperation had her careening over those steps with a previously unknown confidence that had luckily resulted in her feet still managing to reach the sand of the beach instead of her body being scattered over the rocks on the side of the cliffs. Such an achievement, however, was mostly lost on Sansa, who was now standing just outside the large gate, staring up at the monstrous, stone manor that had served as her home for the past handful of months.

 _Dragonstone_. The name had sounded dreary to her ears long before she had ever set eyes on the gargantuan stone castle, and when she had first laid eyes on it six months ago, she had found its name to be quite fitting. From a distance, one could imagine the giant mass of dark stone on the cliffs was a giant dragon perched, ready to spring. Up close, it was even more sinister and foreboding, though it also held its fair amount of beauty with its expert construction and detailing. Staring up at it, however, Sansa could not help but think that the dragon from afar was still there, glaring down at her as it would an intruder or even its prey. Dragonstone was said to have housed dragons once upon a time, and the residents Targaryens, throughout their occupation, continued to claim themselves to be dragons, though the most current resident could not be counted amongst that number. He was never proud to claim that particular part of his lineage, but that blood still coursed through his veins. He could still be considered a dragon, and so he was never haunted by them like she was. Dragonstone housed the shadows of the dragons, after all, and of all those that came before, it was just one in particular whose presence had been far more prominent than the others, and it was that presence that had haunted Sansa’s steps from the moment she stepped foot in the stone halls.

“So long, you fiendish apparition,” Sansa muttered under her breath, her eyes narrowed at the manor that towered over her, silent in its foreboding reign over the horizon. Every dark brick seemed to be laughing at her in her craven retreat, but she pushed herself to tilt her chin up, holding it high as she continued glaring back. “You’re not going to be a witness to any more of my suffering.”

Gripping the handle of her suitcase even tighter in her hand, Sansa slowly tore her eyes from the manor and finally turned to start making her way down the path that would lead to the docks where she would be able to catch the ferry to the mainland. She had taken her wallet that had enough cash for her fare and to buy a room a decent hotel while she decided how to go on from there. That money would be added to the growing amount she would send back once she had the means. She didn’t know when that would be, especially given the situation she would be thrust into when she returned to her family, but she was determined to not be forever indebted to Dragonstone and have that be another score it held against her.

She turned her thoughts to focus more on her more immediate future like what she planned to do when she reached King’s Landing. She would have to find a way to get ahold of her family, though she suspected that they would be less than thrilled to hear from her, especially with how they parted ways months before. Reaching out to Uncle Edmure seemed like her best bet, considering he had been the only one whom she had parted with on good terms. He would most likely welcome her for a time, but no matter how things played out with him, Sansa could see no future where she would be able to evade Aunt Lysa and Petyr’s grips for good. They would find a way to get their hands back on her eventually, and the mere thought of their smug expressions made her stomach feel like lead.

Her mind was so occupied with how she was going to weather the storm of retribution that her aunt was inevitably going to bring down upon her head that Sansa failed to notice that someone was approaching her on the path, coming from the direction of the docks. She was staring at her feet, silently willing them to keep propelling them forward, when she finally noticed another pair of feet standing motionless in the middle of the path, blocking her way. It was the first person she had come across since her morning had begun, and Sansa hoped it would be the last she would face, at least until she was safely on the ferry to King’s Landing.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled quietly, her head still bowed, as she stepped off the path to make her way around the owner of the shoes standing in front of her. They made no move to give her way, even as she was practically on top of them at this point. Sansa kept her head down, knowing that most people on the island knew her, and she wished to avoid facing anyone and seeing their questioning gazes. She quickened her steps to bypass her current obstacle to freedom, but a gasp of surprise slipped from her mouth when the person suddenly moved with her, placing themselves firmly back in her path.

“I beg your pardon,” she spoke a bit louder and clearer, addressing her rude obstacle coolly, unable to hide her annoyance. The smell of the salt was strong, letting her know she was so close to the sea and her eventual escape from this place. Not even a boorish, rude figure could stand in her way when she was so close to her freedom.

“I would like to leave, and you’re standing in my way,” she added more forcefully, once again trying to move to the opposite side, but the person once again moved to place themselves in her path once more.

“I can see that, Sansa.”

That oh so familiar voice, so low and husky, froze Sansa in place, her legs suddenly becoming petrified as she lifted her head quickly to look up into the face of the absolute last person she had wanted to run into this morning. Grey eyes that had become fixtures in both her fantasies and her nightmares stared directly back into her own, and she could feel the judgment rolling off of them in waves, making her wish the sand would just swallow her whole. Even if she had not already blatantly stated her intentions, she understood that he was all too aware of what she was doing by the way his eyes flicked down to her suitcase clutched at her side. She was caught, her quiet escape now turning into a war of wills, though Sansa silently prayed hers, though lacking, would overcome.

“Jon,” she mumbled quietly, her voice sounding frail to her ears. Still, in that single word, she filled her tone with her plea for him to just step aside and let her go. It was, after all, for his benefit as much as it was for her.

A cold, thin smile spread across Jon’s lips as he gazed at her challengingly, seeming to understand exactly what this moment was. A single twitch of the lips was all she needed to see to know that he had no intention of making her escape easy.

“Sansa, my dear _wife._ Were you planning on going somewhere?”

She had been so close.


	2. Stay

_“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.” –_ Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca

_“Sansa, my dear_ wife _. Were you planning on going somewhere?”_

Jon’s words hung in the air between them for a long moment following his question, or rather his accusation. Sansa was frozen in place, still shocked that he had just appeared from seemingly nowhere. But despite her utter shock at his sudden appearance, she couldn’t stop her eyes from drinking him in. She had been set to leave without ever seeing his face again, and yet now, in his presence, she found that her eyes couldn’t quite seem to get enough. Love had a way of doing that: distorting the image to make it hard to focus on anything else because it just wanted to draw the eye to that one stand-out object. Jon had always been that for her: her stand-out object.

He was still dressed in the suit he had worn the last time she saw him at the party, but he was far less put-together now than he was then, though no less handsome. His slicked-back curls were now tousled and flew around his head, battered by the wind. The ends of the bowtie that she had helped him tie the evening before, hung limp around his neck, and the first few buttons of his white shirt were undone, revealing a few inches of the skin of his throat. His jacket was rumpled but surprisingly still on, though with the cold bite in the wind, she could only assume it was because he had been out there since early that morning or even all through the night. He was like a vision conjured from her dreams, even though his being there should have been considered a nightmare. Her heart, however, could never paint him that way.

Lysa had always told her that love was a weakness, but Sansa had assumed that such words came from having to love a man like Petyr. Facing the man who was both her savior and her destroyer, Sansa realized that her aunt’s words were true. Regardless of the way things had shaped up, she came to the harsh realization that should she be given the chance to change the way things played out, she would still give her heart to Jon again. And again. And again. Just because her brain knew better didn’t mean that her heart was willing to listen, the damned stubborn thing it was, and regardless of the fact that it was crushed and shattered in her chest, it still yearned for him. He was a good man, after all, one of the kindest men she had ever met, even when considering the events at the masquerade. And good men didn’t go around breaking hearts, at least not intentionally.

Sansa had never explicitly known what she was getting when she married Jon, but his actions throughout the months of their relationship had more than proven to her that he was a generous man, though a somewhat withdrawn one. He was always patient and was always willing to give her whatever spare time he had at the end of the day, even though Sansa usually never had much to say. Jon, himself, was not a very verbose man in general, but when he did speak, it was never harsh or unkind. He just always seemed withdrawn whenever he spoke to her, his words always precise and succinct in his descriptions of his day and his interactions with the tenants, but there were no revelations of his deeper emotions or thoughts, as though he was afraid to let her get too close. Still, there had been more than a few times when they would sit together in the evening – her with her embroidery and Jon with his scotch – and she would see a haunted look come in his eyes when he did not think her to be paying attention to him. It always pained her to see that look because she always knew that even though he didn’t voice it, his thoughts had wandered to _his ghost._ _She_ had managed to infiltrate the moments that Sansa had wanted to claim for her own, and it always left Sansa feeling a bit hollow.

Drawing her focus from her thoughts to the present, Sansa opened her mouth, ready to make her intentions and her plans known. If nothing else, Jon had always been a good listener to her, and she hoped that the previous night had not changed that about him.

But when she tried to reach for her reasons and motives for her actions, she found her mind coming up blank. Under those intense, scrutinizing grey eyes of his, she found that the walls she had built up throughout the morning had collapsed faster than a sandcastle under a high tide, leaving her devoid of all her arguments and her defenses. She became a silent statue with an ocean of potential to say and yet nothing escaping her lips.

Her lack of response, as well as her history of being compliant to all of his wishes throughout the majority of their relationship, was undoubtedly taken as her acquiescence because before she could conjure up so much as a sigh, Jon was suddenly closing the distance between them with his hand outstretched toward her. Despite months of his gentle, if somewhat indifferent touches, Sansa’s first reaction to seeing him reaching for her was to flinch away violently. She was, after all, caught in the act of doing something rebellious, and such behavior in the past had tended to earn her more than her fair share of physical retribution from her aunt, Petyr, and even her little cousin Sweetrobin on occasion. Why would Jon be any different?

She closed her eyes, preparing herself for a blow to land, but after more than a handful of breaths of nothing happening, she opened her eyes to find Jon staring at her, looking horrified and furious. It took her a moment to realize that his reaction was from her flinching away rather than him catching her fleeing as sorrow and distress flashed in his eyes. It was only when he noticed that she watching him that he finally shook his head, most likely shaking those pitying thoughts aside, and pursed his lips into a solemn line.

“It’s cold out here. We should return to the manor,” he declared with a firmness that left little room for argument. He then reached out again, a lot slower this time, and when she didn’t flinch away, he abruptly plucked the suitcase handle from her grasp and then wordlessly started back up the path toward the manor, expecting her to follow.

To her utter shame and regret, Sansa only hesitated a moment before following after him, every step she took feeling like a lash against her spine and her pride. The wind whispered: “hopeless” and “coward” in her ear every time it blew across her face.

With tears of shame spilling down her cheeks, Sansa couldn’t help but fantasize what a stronger woman, like the heroines from her favorite books and stories, would have done in her shoes. She could just imagine how a bolder, heroine-like Sansa would have known all the right things to say as she boldly faced Jon down. She would have made it plain that she was done being his silent ornament before she would have then promptly thrown the ring that he had slipped on her finger six months ago at his chest before running as fast as her feet could carry her toward the sea. Buoyed by the strength and empowerment of her newly earned independence she would have propelled herself to King’s Landing without needing to board the ferry at all. That woman would have readily found employment in the city easily, and she would have become so good at whatever occupation she found that she would never have had to worry for money or status ever again, let alone condescend herself to bowing her head to those unworthy of her regard. She would have been the sole custodian of her own destiny.

The image of herself being that strong, independent woman made the contrast of Sansa’s current situation all the more excruciating as her feet trudged up the stone steps of Dragonstone. Her disappointment tasted like an acrid paste on her tongue as her already-aching eyes filled with more shame-filled tears. Unlike her heroine, Sansa’s head was bowed, her head weighed down by thoughts that were tinged regret and sorrow as she followed behind the man whom she now understood would be her new warden. The trek was silent but filled with a thick tension that became a barrier between her and Jon, isolating them from one another. Not another word was exchanged between them as they had entered the manor and were then greeted by Doreah and Jorah, who only had to take one look at them and the suitcase in Jon’s hand to understand the situation.

Seeing the two orchestrators of her humiliation and misery bolstered Sansa’s disdain and breathed life into that trampled rebellious spirit from earlier. She didn’t bother to linger under their judgmental looks of victory or stay around to witness their expressions of glee before she hastily took her suitcase from Jon’s hand and ascended the staircase without looking back, even when Jon called after her. She decided she didn’t care how he explained the situation to them since he had been the one to foil her plans, and she didn’t care how he excused what anyone with eyes could see was her attempt to flee. She didn’t really care about anything then, her emotions thoroughly strung out over what felt like hours, even though not even an hour had passed since she had first slipped out of her room.

Sansa expected Jon to come up and talk to her in order to address what had happened on the beach and even the events from the night before, but breakfast and lunch were brought to her room by Doreah herself, most likely on Jon’s orders, and they were immediately sent away, untouched, on hers. She stewed in her rage as the hours passed, and with every passing second that he didn’t appear, she felt her frustrations and anger build back the confidence that he had dashed so easily on the beach. This time, she prepared her defenses and her words carefully so that she would not be caught unaware again. The woman he had found on the beach would be dead and buried. She would make sure of it.

As evening started to fall, Sansa found herself staring out the window at a storm over the sea that seemed to be blowing in. The sun was still managing to shine through the thinner clouds on the outskirts of the looming dark mass, but the closer the storm moved in, the quicker the sun started to lose the battle. There was no question that in less than an hour, the storm would have complete dominion over the skies and the dark turmoil that would come with it. Sansa watched the gloom loom ever nearer and shivered even as she basked in the weakening sun’s rays, feeling sympathy for its plight.

“Are you cold?”

The question nearly startled her, as it came from Jon who was standing in the doorway behind her. Sansa forced herself not look away from her window to acknowledge him even as her body grew rigid at the sound of his voice. The waves had grown, most likely from the approaching storm, and they were crashing on the rocky shores with foreboding and unrestrained fury, but it still felt less dangerous than the fight that was brewing in her room. For the few precious moments of peace that she had left, Sansa chose to watch the storm crawling in outside her window rather than face the one behind her.

She heard Jon sigh heavily before he repeated the question louder, as if it was inconceivable that she would refuse to respond and had merely not heard him the first time. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that he would jump to that conclusion, given how docile she had been up to this point, but that submissive behavior had only given her heartbreak and shame thus far. It was time for a change in tactics.

Initially, she was tempted not to answer him at all - to keep her barrier of silence erected between them - but she doubted that after their previous interaction, he would stand for it. They had pushed each other to the very edge, and she didn’t want the last push from her to be her silence when she had so much more to say.

“I’ve never been warm in this place,” she finally replied quietly, her words laced with ice as she addressed them to the window. “Such a dreary place. I don’t know how anyone could feel any warmth here.”

She almost expected him to take it as the barb it was – even prepared how she would respond when he finally unleashed the anger she had seen in his eyes on the beach – but when he spoke again, his voice was nearer but still calm.

“You should have told me that you were cold. I would have had someone light the fire for you, or I would have done it myself. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable here,” he said gently, his words accompanied by the sounds of him working on lighting the fire in the fireplace.

Even if he didn’t let her words goad him, he made sure to school his tone so that it resembled one addressing a cornered animal. Somehow, that felt even more infuriating than an outright slight. An irked scoff slipped right past her lips before she could stop it, but as soon as it sounded off in the air, she found that she enjoyed the sound. It sounded like defiance, and it helped her realize that the time for silence was done and now was the moment to air her grievances.

“Is that a new development, _husband_? Last night and this morning actually proved to me that my comfort and what I wish is the _last_ thing that matters to you,” she hissed out, unable to stop her mind from going back to the events from the morning despite the fresh ache the memories held.

She quickly shook off the memory, forcing her focus back to the present and quickly stoked up her courage once more before she turned to gaze at Jon over her shoulder. He was still working in the fireplace a few measly feet away from her, but at the moment it felt like he was on the other side of Planetos. He had changed out of his tux and was wearing one of his more casual dark-gray suits that tended to bring out the grey of his eyes that. His dark curls were once again brushed back into the neat, slicked back style he always liked to wear, though Sansa found it to be something of a travesty when his natural curls were so much nicer than her own force-coiled hair. He was pristine and put-together; such a contrast to her own current state, still dressed in her rumpled frock that she refused to change out of in her stubbornness. Their differences in appearance were just a reminder that they were two people who came from two different worlds.

She watched him so long and let the silence fill the space so completely that when he finally spoke, his words, soft and barely louder than a whisper, felt like a loud roar to her ears, making her start.

“You are my wife, Sansa. The best place for you to be is by my side, where you belong.”

“I’m only your wife in name, nothing more,” she argued exasperatedly as she turned to face him fully. “If anyone outside of this room understood our situation, they would say the same thing, and after last night, they would all agree that the charade has turned into a bigger farce than we intended.”

Despite her words being quite heated now, Jon chose to use her tactic of being evasive by fixating on the newly built flames, which only pushed Sansa to go on. 

“I’m sure half the island is aware of our situation, if not half of Westeros, by now. I’m grateful that I could be of some help to you in fending off the women who would seek to be the lady of Dragonstone these past months, but after last night… I’m not sure I can be useful in that capacity anymore. If word didn’t spread of our… _altercation_ at the masquerade, our situation will most likely be spread by the guests that left this morning or the staff that witnessed you bringing me back after I tried to leave. I would be shocked if you hadn’t already received calls inquiring about it already.”

The heavy silence that followed and the way he kept his back faced toward her only seemed to confirm her suspicions. His absence earlier could very well be attested to him and Sam having to field the inquiries that came in as well as damage control for what her actions had done to their reputations. Sansa could only imagine what both of them would have to go through when she actually left. It would be quite the scandal, she had no doubt, especially after her initial attempt was thwarted. She knew it would cause things to be hectic for everyone in the household and most of the staff would think poorly of her. She had never wanted to be such a burden, but she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on such things when her sanity was on the line.

“I don’t care what they think, Sansa,” Jon finally replied, his stilted words cutting through the silence like a knife. “Let them think what they want to. Let _all_ of Westeros think what it bloody wants. I’ve never cared about rumors or whispers before, and I have no intention of starting now,” he declared irritably. “The only thing that I care about now is addressing what happened last night that set this whole thing off.”

“You mean when you made me feel smaller than a pebble in your shoe?” Sansa attempted to deliver the jab delicately, but she wasn’t sure if she was successful in keeping the acrimony from leaking into her tone.

Jon heaved another sigh as he turned his head to gaze at her over his shoulder. “I know that I hurt you deeply last night. I wish I had never allowed myself to erupt like that, but I was truly caught off guard when I looked up to see the costume you had kept secret from me for weeks, only to find… Well, I’m not sure if you are aware, but – “

“It was a replica of the one _she_ wore last _._ Yes, I was made aware of that,” Sansa bit out coolly, feeling her temper rise at his hesitance to address the issue even though he had readily admitted that he had hurt her deeply. “I would have liked to have found that out from _you_ and not from Sam, who had to explain to me why my husband was suddenly so vocally furious with me and then couldn’t bear to be in the same room as me, but I guess your feelings on the matter were more important than mine. You were allowed to react while I was forced to bear the humiliation by myself along with your disdain.”

She spoke loud enough for her voice to echo off the stone walls of her room. If there were any maids in the hallway, they would undoubtedly hear her yelling, and there was little doubt in her mind that they would be quick to report such crude behavior to Jorah, or they would be happy to share it to curious cats when asked to confirm the rumors of their broken marriage. Sansa, however, was too incensed to care at this point. The box had been opened and her thoughts could no longer be contained.

Jon finally turned toward her; his face etched with regret as his eyes bored into her pleadingly.

“I didn’t feel disdain for you last night, Sansa. I could _never_ feel disdain toward you.”

She scoffed, disbelieving. “You are quite the actor then, Jon, because the way you treated me last night felt genuinely _disdainful_.”

He visibly flinched at her response, but it didn’t stop him from walking to her and crouching down in front of her. He left little room for her to retreat unless she threw herself out the window, which wasn’t completely unappealing to her at the moment, still, she remained rigidly seated before him.

“I am terribly sorry for reacting the way that I did, Sansa,” he implored, gazing intently into her eyes as his hands reached out to cover hers in her lap.

She immediately retracted them from out of his grasp, and the look of hurt on his face felt like a dagger in her own chest. he Shad little time to dwell, however, for he chose to use that moment to continue on. “I should have listened to what you had to say before I lost my temper. It’s just that seeing you dressed like that… like _her_ , it was startling to me, Sansa. Actually, no, that’s not even an accurate description. It felt like my _heart_ had stopped. I was completely unprepared.”

Sansa sighed and scooted back on the seat before pulling her knees to her chest and propping her chin on top of them. “I was such a fool to keep it all a secret so I could surprise you,” she confessed quietly. “If I had just told you of my intentions, it would have saved us both a great deal of heartache, and the evening wouldn’t have been so completely ruined.

“I asked for Doreah’s opinion on my masquerade costume after it was announced, and she suggested that I dress as one of the portraits in the gallery.” Doreah most likely knew which one she would be drawn to, the devious woman that she was, and she knew what would happen. It was, after all, so easy to prey on someone so ignorant and eager to please like Sansa.

“Alysanne’s portrait caught my eye right off the bat,” Sansa recounted sullenly. _Alysanne was beautiful, and I wanted to be beautiful for you_ , she added silently as she averted her eyes to the floral print of her frock.

Bitter bile slid up her throat as she stared hard at the flowers as one last dark thought entered her head. _I have no doubt_ your previous wife _was far more beautiful than I could ever be when she wore the same costume._

“I had no idea that _she_ had chosen that portrait as her own inspiration. Had I known; I can assure you that I would never have worn it. I would never be so cruel to you.” _Flaunting the image of your dead lover in front of you._

A long, tense-filled silence followed her confession. It seemed to carry on for hours, but Sansa held her breath throughout all of it, praying that he would believe her. Even if he could not love her, the very least she expected was his acknowledgment of her integrity and her intent. His precious memory of his wife would forever hold his heart, but Sansa felt she had at least earned his regard toward her character.

She nearly jumped when she felt his rough palms touching her hands that were entwined loosely over her shins. She dared not pull away this time when he was meant to deliver his judgment upon her, but she yearned to when she felt the skin of her arms become covered in gooseflesh. Even a simple thing as a touch from him could cause an electric current throughout her body, and now, more than ever, she didn’t want to be consumed by her weakness for him.

“I believe you, Sansa,” Jon declared slowly as he rubbed his fingertips gently over the back of her hands. “You’re right. I thought of my own feelings before trying to allow you to explain things first, and I know that I hurt you deeply. That’s the last thing that I wanted to do, and yet I did it. I would find it hard to forgive me if I were in your shoes, but I would ask it from you all the same,” he declared gravely as his eyes stared deeply into her own.

The sincerity in his voice and the raw penitence in his eyes made Sansa’s throat feel like it had never been touched by water before. He had always had that infuriating ability to render her speechless with that particular look, regardless of the fact that it didn’t necessarily resemble the looks of love that she always loved reading about in her favorite fairy tales. Then again, Jon had never really resembled the heroic princes and heroes in her favorite stories. Nevertheless, that hadn’t stopped him from becoming the hero in her eyes. She just wasn’t the heroine in _his_ story.

Willing the tears that were building up in her eyes to stay at bay, Sansa forced a small smile on her lips as she gave one swift nod. “It was my mistake first, so it would be wrong of me to ask for forgiveness from you if I had no intention of giving it back. It’s yours if you’ll have it, Jon.” _Much like my heart_.

His answer was an immediate grin that slid across his face, which was a rare sight throughout the time she had known him. It transformed his face into an image that Sansa didn’t think even the most skilled artist could capture. It was truly a thing of beauty, and it almost made her glad that such looks were rare, for they only made each one more valuable than the one before, which made the fact that he had given it to her in this moment even more precious. Had he been more giving of them, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to muster up the courage to look away from him, let alone walk away as she intended.

“I’m so glad we can move past this,” Jon whispered softly as he raised his hand up to gently cup her cheek. He rose up slowly to press his lips to the top her head, a gesture he had done a few times before in the past, but it was one mainly given when she had done or said something that had pleased him. Such kisses in the past had always made Sansa’s heart flutter and her body heat up like it had been inflamed, but there was never anything that followed that showed he felt the same. To him it was merely a deed bestowed upon a subject, not an affectionate gesture a man would bestow upon his wife. This moment felt no different, and Sansa only used that to fuel her resolve, even as she watched him rise to his feet, ready to leave.

“I think that Chef is almost done with making dinner, so I’ll send Shae in to help you unpack and get ready. I’m sure Rhaenys and Willas will be happy to see you again at dinner, and I’ve also invited Sam and Gilly, which should make the meal lighter since it will be filled with good company. We can talk more later.”

With her stomach sinking, Sansa realized that this moment was meant to be the end of the whole debacle. Forgiveness had been given by both parties and a resolution had been found. Everything had been tied up with a pretty bow, and she was meant to go on like the slate had been wiped clean. Life could go on as it always has.

_As it always has. As it always has. As it always has._

_Don’t falter, Sansa. Not again._

Gathering her courage together, Sansa boldly reached out to grasp Jon’s wrist, tethering him to her before he could walk away. He stopped and looked down at her hand with his brow furrowed in confusion before flicking his eyes up to hers in silent question. It would have been so easy at that moment to give in and pretend she had nothing more to say, but now that she was at the edge of things, she realized there was no going back. As touching as this moment was, she still intended it to be her last with him – a bittersweet ending to this dream-like state. Now, it was time to wake up.

“I forgive you, but my mind hasn’t changed, Jon,” she declared firmly, refusing to let the whirling emotions battling inside of her to leak into her tone despite her heart squeezing and breaking inside her chest. She couldn’t let him think that it was just her emotions that were dictating her actions when it was her self-preservation calling the shots now. “In the morning, I have every intention of getting on that ferry still. So… I forgive you, but I’m still leaving.”

Jon’s wrist grew rigid in her hold before he pulled it out of her grasp completely. He took a few steps back before stopping, his grey eyes still staring at her like she had just stolen the breath from his very lungs.

“If I’m forgiven, then why do you still want to leave?” he questioned quietly, his voice stilted and restrained.

Sansa sighed and rose as well. Her feet wanted to carry her to him, so that she could soothe his pain and anger, but she forced them to take her to her vanity instead. She had cried herself to sleep on it the night before and now, she skimmed her fingertips over the top, drawing power from the sorrowful tears she had poured into it.

“Last night revealed a lot of things to me, and even with our disagreement resolved, those revelations aren’t just going away,” she started as she stared hard at her reflection in the mirror. Despite the fact that her reflection looked less pallid and drawn from the morning, the memory of what she had seen then remained fixed in her mind and it enflamed the pain in her heart even as it bolstered her nerves. “One of those revelations was that I don’t belong here in Dragonstone; that I never truly belonged here no matter how hard I tried to make myself believe it so.”

“That’s silly, Sansa. You’re my _wife_ , and I’m the lord of Dragonstone, so you belong here as much as I do,” he declared stubbornly, trying to make his statement sound firm, but even in his voice she could hear the uncertainty underlying his sternness. He may have wanted her to believe that his resolve was strong, but in reality, it was as unstable as quicksand, and she was sinking under with every second that passed.

Sansa choked out a bitter laugh, void of all humor. “Please, stop calling me that, Jon. Yes, we said the words in the sept in front of the septon, but you and I both know that they weren’t real. This marriage is a farce, and our situation is not bringing either of us happiness anymore, if it ever did.”

Her back was faced to Jon, but she could tell that he was looking at her because of how her skin burned where his eyes bored into her. There was a shift in the air between them. It reminded her of how the air felt just before lightning split the sky. Everything suddenly felt charged.

“Who is it?”

Out of all the things that Sansa had expected Jon to say after she had basically confronted him with the fact that she wanted out, that particular question was not one of them. It was such an abrupt change of topic and tone that she almost believed that he was speaking to someone else. She even turned around – her brow furrowed in confusion – and looked around the room, expecting to find one of the servants to have slipped in when her back was turned. There was, however, no one else but him and her, and he was still staring directly at her with his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists at his side.

“What?” she answered him with her own confused question. “Who’s who?”

Jon looked positively furious, and that was also not something that Sansa had expected from him. She had expected mild alarm, disappointment, and even relief after she made her thoughts known, but she was not expecting him to be angry, let alone to this extent. It was such a contrast to his generally solemn, broody face that when he started walking slowly toward her, she involuntarily retreated, unwittingly bumping into her vanity in alarm. She knew there was little chance that he would lay a hand on her, but she was alarmed at his approach all the same.

“Is it Podrick?” Jon demanded, ignoring her retreat, as he continued ambling toward her, his voice emanating fury in waves.

Podrick was one of the few people on the island that Sansa had found to be genuinely kind to her. He was Jon’s chauffeur, but because the island was fairly small and one didn’t need a car to get around, he wasn’t needed unless Jon had to go the mainland or anywhere else, which was rare. Therefore, Podrick spent the majority of his time maintaining the cars and helping around the house. Along with Shae, he was one of Sansa’s few friends at Dragonstone, and one of the few she knew she was going to miss when she left. That didn’t mean she had any idea why Jon would be bringing him up now.

“Did he promise to take you away from here to someplace better? Or was it one of the guests from the masquerade who wiped away your tears and promised to steal you away from your cruel husband? Who.Is.It?”

Sansa’s mind started becoming fogged again when he stopped less than a foot in front of her, close enough for her to be able to admire his long, dark lashes contrasting with his dark, grey eyes. She forced her thoughts to remain clear of the fugue he tended to induce in her, and with her brain returning back to working form, she realized what his questions were insinuating, and the fury that followed swept away all of her admiration for him like a tidal wave.

“I have always known that you have struggled to view me the way you would view a true wife, Jon, but I had, at the very least, expected you to respect my integrity, considering how honest I’ve always been with you. I have been here with you _six months_ and my actions thus far should have been proof enough that I have been nothing but loyal to you even if that loyalty wasn’t reciprocated. To accuse me of being unfaithful is just more proof that I have no place here on this gods-forsaken island, let alone one at your side!”

The cold frown on his lips revealed that he was completely undaunted by her angry retort, which only made Sansa more infuriated. She had to grip the edge of her vanity at her sides to stop herself from shoving him away from her. He didn’t get to accuse her of infidelity and make her blood so heated while making her feel flustered and confused in his presence. He shouldn’t be allowed to have that much power over her.

“If you’re accusing _me_ of being unfaithful, you obviously don’t know me, either, Sansa. _I_ have _never_ looked at another woman since I’ve met you, and I have no intention of doing so, either.”

Sansa tilted her head up in defiance as she met his glare with an equally furious glower of her own. _You may not look at anyone else, but that doesn’t mean that you see anyone, either._ She didn’t get to voice this particular thought because he was speaking again, drawing her thoughts back focus on him.

“Also, Sansa, _I_ am not the one who planned on slinking off into the shadows without so much as a word of where you were going, as you did. So, don’t try levying your integrity at me right now, when, if I had not been there on the beach, you would have been long gone by now while I would have been here worried sick!”

He was shouting as he leveled his last argument at her, and Sansa realized just why. In spite of the fact that the circumstances were vastly different, her leaving without telling him of her intentions would have paralleled what happened to Jon the last time he lost a wife. This particular jab landed its mark perfectly, battering Sansa’s steadiness as she leaned heavily against her vanity for balance. He was right. It was cowardly to slip away without leaving a note regardless of how everything had felt so much more desperate at the time of her departure. No matter how much Jon may have tarnished her pride, it was cruel to just leave everything with him so open-ended. As much as she hated how shameful she had found her folding into his demands on the beach, she currently found it a silver-lining now that she could be here to tie up all her loose ends on Dragonstone. If she played her cards right, she wouldn’t have to slink off like a craven mouse. She could now walk away with her head high with boldness of a wolf.

Sansa inhaled deeply before lifting her eyes to meet Jon’s angry, demanding stare. “You’re right,” she conceded quietly. “It was craven and cruel of me to leave without making my intentions known to you, given the circumstances of what happened to you… _before_. I’m sorry that I allowed my feelings to cloud my judgment in that regard, but my intentions _are_ _my_ _own_ , and I am not leaving to be with some secret, illicit lover. I was leaving of my own personal volition, and I will do so again when I leave Dragonstone… _alone_.”

Jon’s shoulders became hunched and his face remained grave as he raised his hand to scratch at the back of his neck.

“Do you even have a plan on where you were going to go after you reach King’s Landing? Or were you just desperate to get as far away from me as you could?”

Folding her arms in front of her chest to create a makeshift barrier between them, Sansa lowered her eyes to the ground. Her destination was still somewhat uncertain, but if anything, telling him of her plans could help solidify them.

“At lunch, yesterday, Rhaenys mentioned that she saw my uncle, Edmure, while she was visiting the Red Keep. I planned on going to King’s Landing in the hopes of finding him and Roslin,” she explained while silently thanking her lucky stars that his sister had provided her with that information and that Jon had been present when she had said it, solidifying her story.

Jon’s lips turned down into a frown. “You mean, you were going to King’s Landing just based off of a story my sister told?” His voice was filled with exasperation as his eyes narrowed on her once more. “Do you realize the folly of that plan? Rhaenys saw him nearly a week ago. He could have very well left the city already, and you would be left with nowhere to go and no one to help you. You’d be wandering the streets all alone, and I would have no way of finding you!”

It was at moments such as this that Sansa could feel the nine-year age gap between them. Although she was nearly twenty-one, she sometimes still felt completely naïve to the ways of the world. Her mother had died when she was barely more than an infant, and without revealing who Sansa’s father was, she had left Sansa at the mercy of her family. Her grandfather, Hoster, had been a good caretaker, but he had died when she was eight and before she could start learning the way of things. Lysa and Petyr had then taken her in, and they had kept her in the dark because they had wanted to control her.

Jon had been a contrast when he married her as he had thrust her into the role of lady of the manor without any guide or instruction to help her. She hadn’t been able to rise to the task the way she knew he wanted her to, but she also hadn’t made things worse, either. He had still trusted her with his home, so it hurt that he basically called her naïve when it came to her own future. It made her desperate to prove that she was capable of taking care of herself.

“My grandfather always stayed at the Silver Trout Hotel whenever he visited King’s Landing, so I just assume that Edmure would be staying there as well if he is still in King’s Landing,” she announced defiantly – making sure to sound certain despite her conjecture relying heavily on Edmure following his father’s traditions. “If he isn’t there, then I will simply go to Riverrun on my own. I did grow up there, after all, and I know where it is. So, you see, I am not completely helpless, thank you very much.” She didn’t mention the fact that the money she would use to buy her train ticket to Riverrun would be his that she planned on paying back later, especially since he still seemed completely skeptical of her plans.

Sansa felt somewhat proud of the plans she had cobbled together during her time alone since being returned to Dragonstone, but now, when she found her plans being met with Jon’s raised eyebrows and cynical frown, she felt a stab of irritation in her side. She had believed them to be fairly good plans for such short notice, and ones that were easily executable, even by a woman who was still fairly unfamiliar with the way of the world. If he wanted more, then she would show him she had alternatives.

“Riverrun was my home for eight years, and I still remember everyone there. If, somehow, I miss Edmure and he’s not at Riverrun, I should still be safe with the people there, like my grandfather’s uncle, Brynden. Should I meet with any hiccups in my travels that I can’t handle, I’m sure he would be happy to help, and even if he could not, I could still contact Lysa and Petyr as a last resort. They may abhor me, but I’m still family. It would probably take quite a bit of cajoling, but I’m almost certain they would take me in again if the need should – “

“You would allow yourself to be put at the mercy of the very people you married me to escape?” Jon demanded, cutting her off as he took another step toward her, crowding her against her vanity. His eyes were wide as he raised his hands in front of him and left them there between them as though he was struggling not to reach out and shake her. “Do you truly hate Dragonstone so much that you would go back to the man who wanted you _inspected_ before he would allow you to marry me?”

Sansa had chosen to block that particular memory when she had forced herself to accept an inevitable reunion with Petyr and Lysa. It had been one of the most humiliating and degrading moments in her life, hearing her uncle tell her that she should have an _examination_ in order to ascertain her _purity_ after she announced that she was marrying Jon. He had said it lightly in passing after it became known that Sansa had spent a great deal of time with Jon alone in Lys while her aunt had been bedridden with a summer flu. It was a jab that was meant to hurt Sansa more than anything else, as it alluded to her own mother’s circumstances – the beloved Catelyn Tully who had gone North to attend university only to come home pregnant with a bastard, the name of the father forever sealed behind her lips when she died four years later.

Petyr had tried to pass it off as a mere yarn, but Jon had been absolutely irate, enough for him to ban Petyr from ever setting eyes on Sansa again, including being disinvited from their nuptials. Sansa had reluctantly argued with him that she needed Petyr to receive the inheritance her grandfather had left her in his will upon her twenty-first birthday, but Jon had been adamant that she wouldn’t need it once she was his wife. As grateful as she was then to be rid of Petyr, it was a cruel revelation now that she had merely freed herself from one man’s hold just to put her life so completely in the hold of another.

Shaking her mind of such melancholy thoughts, Sansa chose to focus on the matter at hand, which was dealing with Jon.

“Me possibly having to rely on Lysa and Petyr again has nothing to do with how I feel about you or Dragonstone, Jon” she assured him gently, hoping to soothe his ruffled feathers. An angry Jon wouldn’t be willing to listen or let her desires to leave, so she needed him compliant. “It actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.

“My grandfather left me money in his will. As a woman who never had any power or influence of my own, that money would provide me with the means to live my life the way I see fit for myself, regardless of where I am or who I’m with. It would give me power where I had none when it came of my own situation, where I could be completely reliant upon myself,” she pushed on solemnly.

“The person who stands in the way of me receiving that inheritance is Uncle Petyr, who was the executor of Grandfather Hoster’s will,” she went on, choosing to keep her voice calm, even though it was a struggle with Jon even closer than before. She had to turn her face away from his boring eyes in order to continue on. “As despicable as he and my aunt are, they are a necessary evil if they can get me what I want, and if that means crawling to them on bended knee, that’s something that I will just grit my teeth and bear through, which isn’t anything I haven’t done before. I would only be atm their mercy until I’m twenty-one, which is only a few months away, so, even if I fall into their grasps, it will only be for a short time.”

She hadn’t realized that she was close to tears until she felt Jon’s thumb wiping away a stray tear that had slipped from the corner of her eye. Saying how she was going to do things was one thing, but actually putting herself back into the path of the man who had been the subject of her nightmares for years was a whole other animal. Her freedom was so close, and yet it was locked behind foul doors that would undoubtedly stain her soul as she passed through them.

“Don’t go to them, Sansa,” Jon whispered quietly, as his hand lingered on her cheek. His thumb smoothed soothing circles into the skin that had been touched by the stray tear. His touch lit a fire that coursed through her veins from the points where his fingers brushed her skin. “If it’s money you want, I will gladly give it to you without asking anything in return, even if you still choose to leave. If it’s your _grandfather’s_ money you want, then stay here until you turn twenty-one, and _then_ go to them and demand your inheritance. Just don’t go to them now, Sansa. I don’t want you to go through the same treatment that forced you onto that cliff’s edge in Lys.”

Gods, he knew just what to say to make her knees weak and her heart flutter. It was infuriating how easily he could sweep away all of her plans with just a soft, kind word. How was he capable of leaving her so feeble in her convictions?

_Don’t falter, Sansa_.

“I-I thank you for being concerned for my well-being, but I’m going to be making decisions for myself from now on,” she declared nervously but pushed on until she felt herself feeling steady once more, even under his scrutiny. His hand dropped abruptly from her face, and she considered it a sign that her resoluteness was finally dancing out of his influence. “All I ask is that you step aside and let me go without trying to stand in my way or change my mind. It’s already been made up.”

His disapproval was thick in the small space between them, making it hard for Sansa to breathe, let alone think. She always knew that his displeasure was going to be imminent when she chose to leave Dragonstone, but her path out would have less obstacles if she could just get him to see reason.

“You don’t need to worry. My aunt and uncle are truly my absolute last resort, Jon,” she said solemnly, hoping to reassure him that she was not going to fall back to being her aunt and uncle’s whipping girl. “Edmure will be sympathetic to my plight with my aunt, especially after what he saw at our wedding. I’m almost certain he will let me stay with him until I come of age to receive my endowment. He may even let me stay on with him and Roslin if Lysa and Petyr fight me on the inheritance. I’m sure he wouldn’t even mind hiring me on as a nanny, especially if he and Roslin have children. I would get to stay on in my childhood home, I would get to spend time with my little cousins, and most importantly, I would be able to make a living on my own terms. So, you see… I’m not completely without options.”

Jon was still at a stifling proximity to her. Desperate to have room to think, Sansa placed her hands on the cloth of his suit-clad chest and lightly pushed him back, hoping he would understand her need. She thanked all the gods listening when he stepped back, but he didn’t retreat any further. Still, with that space he gave, though small, she felt herself being able to breathe easier.

Sansa watched as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, seemingly struggling on how to respond. She waited patiently, feeling that he deserved that much from her after he had listened to most of what she had to say. No more than a handful of moments past before he took in a deep breath and tried again.

“What if I refuse to comply with your wishes?”

Sansa inhaled deeply, her hands beginning to tremble, as she felt irritation, and more than a little bit of shock, that he was still trying to fight her on her desire to leave.

“I’m pleading with you to not resist this, Jon,” she implored him quietly but desperately. “I’ve already told you why I can’t stay here anymore, and I just want you to respect it.”

Sansa watched him lift his hand and stretch it out toward her, but at the last second, he pulled it back and carded his fingers through his hair instead; a gesture she now recognized as one he did when he was frustrated.

“That’s just the thing, Sansa. You _haven’t_ made it clear why you need to leave,” he argued vehemently. “Barring the events from last night, which you’ve claimed to have forgiven me for, I’m don’t see why you feel you don’t belong or why you want to leave so badly. If you want to exert your own influence and independence, I can give that to you here. You can do things however you like here in the manor. You are the lady here, after all. And if you want your own money, you can have it, either from obtaining your endowment or by finding means of earning it on your own. I’ll even help you find it. Would that be enough to keep you from wanting to leave?”

Leaving wasn’t about wanting, though. Leaving was a _necessity_ if Sansa hoped to preserve the essence of who she was. If she stayed and allowed herself to be forever compared and measured against the ghost of the previous Lady Targaryen, there was little doubt that she would turn into Lysa: a cruel, heartless woman who tried to achieve worth by tearing down everyone and everything just because the man she loved would always be in love with her sister. Sansa would rather die than allow herself to become so embittered and spiteful. She just wasn’t sure that she could let Jon know that, even now.

“I was never meant to run a manor like Dragonstone, Jon,” she answered him softly, forcing herself to face the shame of her own inadequacies when it came to managing the household. “It was kind of you to think that someone like me could take on such a duty, but the truth is that I was completely unable to rise to the task.”

Jon scowled. “Don’t be silly. Doreah said – “

“Doreah said what she knew would make it easier for you not to interfere with the status quo,” Sansa cut in irritably. “She may have sung my praises to you, but in all honesty, she has been the one who has been running everything since I’ve gotten here. She and Jorah have controlled everything in Dragonstone without my input or interference for the six months I’ve been here, and they will continue to run things smoothly long after I’m gone.”

Jon frowned. “If Jorah or Doreah have been insubordinate to you, I will have them promptly dismissed. I’m sure Sam would be able to find good replacements from the village, or by reference, or by advertisement,” he declared firmly. “If you had brought it to my attention that you didn’t feel comfortable working with them earlier, I would have had them gone sooner.”

Sansa shook her head with a roll of her eyes. “No, you don’t understand. That’s not what I want,” she answered back immediately in her desperation for him to see reason. “Dragonstone is their home more than it is mine. They’re the reason this manor runs as efficiently as it does. The other household staff respect them and adore them.”

Jon’s face remained determinedly grim, so Sansa pushed on.

“ _You_ have never had problems with them before I came here, after all, so that must mean that you like the way they run things. Regardless of how they made me feel, they are the best people to run this household.” _Until you marry a better woman who can do and bear what I couldn’t._

Sansa pushed that thought back forcefully. Just the mere thought of Jon marrying someone else who would fit in better than she ever did felt almost crippling. Those were the thoughts she would have plenty of time to face when she was gone, not when she was still standing in Dragonstone fighting for her right to leave.

“No, Sansa, that’s not the way this works. _You_ are the one who runs this household as my wife and the lady of this manor, and it’s _you_ they are to take direction from, not the other way around,” Jon cried out in frustration. “If they can’t work with you or can’t see you as the rightful lady of this household, then they don’t just get to stay. This is _your_ home, and you have a right to run it the way you want, not the way _they_ want you to.”

“But that’s just it. How am I supposed to know how to run a household? I’m an orphan who was raised in a house much smaller than this one, and even then, I was forced to leave before I could ever learn the way of things.”

Sansa reached up and rubbed at her forehead, remembering how all the servants had observed her skeptically when she fumbled around the manor on her first day in Dragonstone. Every stumble had been met with derisive smirk from Doreah, who was at her elbow through the entire day. Even the newly hired maids hadn’t been able to hide the pity from their eyes when they looked at her, and it had made Sansa feel more pathetic than dog with a mange. From that day on, she had made it a point to do whatever she could to just stay out of the way until she was called to dine with Jon for supper, spending most of her days outdoors in the gardens or on the beach when the weather permitted. When it did not, she holed herself up in her sitting room, silently praying that neither Jorah or Doreah would need her input on anything after she had given them run of the household.

“Most ladies are taught how to do such things from the time they’re born, but I wasn’t because I was never expected to be a lady, and that was made clear my first day here. There was no way I could hide my ignorance, nor could I rectify it when every attempt was met with looks of pity. It was clear that no one ever respected me or my position as your wife. Why would they?”

“Because they don’t get to choose who the lady of Dragonstone is, Sansa, _I_ do, and I _did_. I chose _you_ ,” Jon answered, despite the rhetorical nature of her question.

He looked positively furious now, and that left Sansa feeling guilty imagining that she may have brought his wrath down on the serving staff. No matter how angry and disdainful she may have felt toward the head of the staff, she was sincere in her thoughts that they belonged in Dragonstone more than she did and that they were necessary for the manor to prosper.

“I’m afraid you just chose wrong, Jon,” she declared quietly, her voice cracking under the bitterness and the sorrow of such an admission. There was a lingering notion that filled her head no matter how hard she tried to push it away. _You chose right the first time around._ It lingered and stole the breath right out of her lungs.

The distress she felt must have been reflected on her face, for Jon stepped forward and reached his hands out to her, most likely to reassure or sooth her. Sansa immediately raised a hand up, silently begging him to stay back. For a moment there was turmoil in his eyes that resembled the look on the beach when she had flinched away from him. His hands dropped back to his side where he flexed them and then balled them into fists as though to keep them from reaching out again. His eyes stayed riveted to hers, silently imploring her give him permission to let him in. Sansa sucked in a large breath as she backed into the vanity even more, mentally building up her barriers to fight the urge to succumb or acquiesce.

He sighed and looked at her with utter defeat etched on his face, leaving Sansa to feel both hope and fear that he had finally accepted her choice to leave. It was, after all, one thing to sneak away into the shadows, leaving him none the wiser, but it was something different for the one you love to _let_ you walk away, even if that was what you wanted. Something inside of her still felt broken at the thought of her victory, forcing her to avert her eyes to the ground before she allowed her emotions to get the best of her.

She didn’t want to leave him time to rethink his position, so she started to make her way past him. Tears were already starting to fall down her cheeks, but she bowed her head in an effort to hide them from his view. Before she could move past him, however, she felt her wrist being ensnared in his grip. His hold was gentle but firm as he used her own momentum to pull her back into his arms. Sansa stumbled, but Jon’s hands were already at her elbows, steadying her, though once again, she was forced to bear the heaviness of his penetrating stare.

“I can’t stay,” she proclaimed sternly before giving him a chance to tear down the walls of her resoluteness. Her voice shook under the influence of the sobs that were threatening to be ripped from her chest. “I just can’t, so please stop asking it of me.” _Why can’t he just let me go?_

Jon’s hands moved from her elbows to her face, bracing it as he gently tilted her head back so she was once again looking directly into his eyes. With his hands on her cheeks, he silently studied her face, taking in every detail of her sadness. With her head bracketed by his hands, Sansa was forced to bear her soul to him since she couldn’t turn her face away. Being so exposed, she found that she couldn’t even attempt to pull her emotions back as the levy broke on her restraint. That meant he was able to witness the tears turn into sobs as she succumbed to the downpour of her emotions. She hated that he was a spectator to her at her most vulnerable point, and a part of Sansa felt that she should hate him for that.

“Please don’t cry, Sansa,” Jon pleaded quietly as he used the back of his fingers to wipe away the tracks of her tears. She couldn’t attest to whether or not there was snot mixed in, considering that her sobs had completely escaped her control at that point, but there was no disgust or pity on his face as he merely kept at the arduous task, unbothered. There was just tenderness and sadness in his eyes and in his touch as he caressed her skin delicately. “All I ask, is that you give me two days.”

Sansa sniffled and narrowed her teary eyes at him, confused at his request. Two days? Why two days?

“What difference is t-tomorrow m-morning and two days from now going to make, Jon?” she stammered out crossly through her sobs, her frustration at his request mixing with her anger at him for not allowing her to cry and release her sorrows in peace. “I-I told you that my mind has been made up. I’m not going to allow you to change it.”

Jon seemed undaunted by the bite in her tone and her confusion and doubt toward his intentions. He actually smiled as his hands returned to cupping her cheeks with thumbs once again caressing and rubbing soothing circles in her skin. He shushed her as he leaned in until his eyes were directly in front of hers, their noses touching.

“I’m not going to try and change your mind, Sansa.”

Sansa should have felt relieved by that statement, but she only felt confused, most likely because of his affectionate touches and strokes. Her bewilderment must have shown on her face because when Jon pulled back and got a good look at her, he chuckled softly before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her nose and then her brow.

“I just need two days to work things out with Sam. He’s going to need to be informed of everything that needs to be done while I’m away.”

“While you’re _away_?’” Sansa questioned aloud, her brain feeling strained as she felt overcome with emotional whiplash.

Jon only chuckled again before he brought her face closer to his so that he could press his brow to hers. With him so close, she could practically feel his next words on her own lips.

“If you’re not going to stay, then I’m just going to have to go with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I had a little mini-breakdown before posting this because this was definitely not where or how I wanted to end the chapter, but at 10K, I felt this monster needed to meet it’s end already. I’m irritated that I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet, especially when this thing took so much energy out of me, but at least it’s out of the way and I can focus on the fun part. Thanks for reading anyway! Hopefully the next part will be up a lot quicker! =)
> 
> Also, if you want to see my little breakdowns about writing this fic, you can find me at  persnickety-persnackety  on Tumblr.


	3. Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading up to this point, guys! I appreciate every kudo and comment I've received thus far (far more than I ever expected), and I'm sorry if I haven't answered your comment. This chap has seriously taken every bit of spare energy I have left, which is why I may have more than likely missed a typo here and there and probably wrote something completely incomprehensible somewhere in this behemoth. Please, try and bear with me.

Chaos

_“The moment of crisis had come, and I must face it. My old fears, my diffidence, my shyness, my hopeless sense of inferiority, must be conquered now and thrust aside. If I failed now I should fail forever.”_ – Daphne Du Maurier, _Rebecca_

Sansa’s face felt stiff even as the skin on her cheeks felt thin and brittle. Her head was one throbbing organ, but that wasn’t necessarily a surprise, considering the number of tears she had shed in less than a day’s time. As she sat before her vanity once more, staring at her reflection, she couldn’t help but note that even with her face returning to the, pale, and tear-streaked state from before, the emotions she felt were, in equal measure, a contrast and echo of the feelings she felt that morning.

 _How dare he insist on coming with me!_ The thought was so loud in Sansa’s mind, she felt herself biting her bottom lip to stop from screaming in frustration. _How dare he act like he doesn’t see what this place, and he, in his complacency, have done to me. Now he dares to interfere further by joining in my escape?_

The longer she dwelled on such thoughts, the more Sansa noticed her eyes narrowing in her reflection, and her pale cheeks flushing with a righteous anger. Beneath the vanity, her legs bounced impatiently, desperate to move. She wanted to go – to be anywhere else but there – but with Jon throwing a wrench in her plans, she was forced into this tortuous limbo where she felt as though a harness had been placed over her head with Jon holding the reins.

If she was a far pettier person, she would have simply slipped out as soon as Jon had received the summons to dinner just after he had made his declaration that he intended on leaving with her. He had told her that he would go to tell the others that she was unwell and that she and he wouldn’t be dining with them tonight, but that still would have given her enough time to slip out without him knowing. Enough time for her to leave and allow him to come back and find her room empty and her suitcase gone once more. She was almost certain she could make it just in time to catch last trip to King’s Landing on the ferry, which meant he wouldn’t be able to follow until morning. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t know where she was going, either, so it wasn’t completely in the realm of heartlessness.

“No, Sansa,” she uttered aloud, the words breaking the silence, shaking her out of the stupor she had unwittingly fallen into when she had been left to her own indecisive devices in his wake. She glared at her reflection, willing it to be strong and wise, especially in regards to her immediate future. “You’re not slipping out as a shadow. You’re going to walk out of this place boldly with your head held high, and more importantly, you’re going to be on your own.”

Standing from the vanity, she began to pace. She covered the ground of her room fairly quickly, despite its vastness, and then turned around and covered it again in an effort to relieve the pent-up energy in her limbs. It was after every other turn about that she took note of how the room became illuminated by the lightning from the storm that had almost reached land. The thunder that sounded after took its time, and even then, it was still faint, letting Sansa know that the storm itself was still hovering somewhere over the sea, though still making its slow crawl toward Dragonstone. There were still steady patters of rain hitting the glass of the window, but she had no doubt that it would be far louder and faster once the actual mass of the storm reached the manor. She couldn’t help but think that even with the ferry on the opposite side of the island to where the storm was coming from, the last trip would most likely be canceled, which meant that even if she slipped out, she wouldn’t be able to leave the island until morning, if then. She was going to be trapped here whether she liked it or not, and that meant she was going to have to face Jon again.

 _Do I tell him_? She questioned as she continued to pace while wringing her hands nervously. _Do I tell him why I can’t have him come?_

Sansa stopped irritably in front of the window where she stared out. The storm had blotted out all light, save for the flashes of illumination that came with the lightning, but it was in the darkness that she found it easier to project her thoughts and emotions on.

_Surely, he must know already how I feel. How could he not?_

Granted, she had never come right out and told him that she was in love with him – that she loved him to her very bones – but surely that was _implied_ after six months of her being at his side every chance she got or in the way she drank in every word he shared with her like it was gospel and she a thirsty apostle. How could he not see? Even if he was generally withdrawn and distant, surely that didn’t make him blind to her more open show of affections… She had, after all, agreed to marry him after only two weeks… but then again… considering what she would have gone home to, maybe he had just thought she agreed because she wanted to get away. Still, he had to have known that she cared for him to agree to be his wife… right?

 _Do I have to tell him?_ Her hands started to tremble at the very thought. Sansa tempered it by wringing her hands together over her stomach that was filled with writhing worms, making her want to vomit, but there was nothing inside her stomach to spit up. _Am I going to have to go to such lengths just to face the humiliation when he rejects the very idea of loving me back? Must I be humiliated at every turn here?_

Just like one can hardly stop one’s tongue from prodding at a loose, aching tooth, Sansa found that her mind could not stop prodding at the memory of her last humiliating encounter with Jon. It overpowered her defenses so swiftly that she couldn’t even try to stop it before she found herself standing at the top of the main staircase, once more dressed in the gown she had painstakingly put together herself over the course of two weeks. She had never felt so beautiful as she had felt then, wearing the new, antique-style gown and the powdered wig that mirrored the one Alysanne had been wearing in her portrait. Sansa had been meticulous in paralleling all of the details that she had seen in the portrait, all while she kept the details of her costume secret from everyone but Shae, including Jon who had tried goading clues of her costume from her after she initially refused to tell him what she was going to wear.

The din of the staff working in the dining room, finishing up the last touches before the guests started arriving, filled her ears, accompanied by the soft murmurs coming from Jon, Rhaenys, Sam, Gilly, and Willas, who had gathered together and were chattering softly amongst each other as they stood together in the foyer, most likely waiting for her. They were smiling about something Willas had said, and they were so enthralled by their chatter that none of them noticed Sansa right away, even as she started descending the staircase.

It had been Sam who had looked up and caught sight of her first, and Sansa almost knew right off the bat that she had made a grave error just based on how quickly the blood had drained from his face as soon as his eyes had taken her in. He looked like he had seen a ghost. She had wanted to turn around and run back up the stairs right then and there, but by the time she realized the error of her ways, everyone else in the group had taken notice of her, and her suspicions were only further confirmed that she had made a mistake by the way all of their reactions mirrored Sam’s. Each and every one of them, save for Gilly, had looked like they were about to faint. Sansa’s eyes, however, were drawn specifically to Jon whose jaw was visibly clenched as his grey pupils were blown wide with what she could only describe as dread.

She had not realized she had continued descending the steps until she found herself standing directly in front of Jon whose gaze was glued to hers. The look of horror had faded from his eyes the closer she had drawn to him, and it had seemingly been replaced with fury just based off of how stiff every single muscle of his body had become. It was a look that sent an echo of fear down Sansa’s own spine because she had never seen such a look on Jon before. Yes, she had seen him mildly irritated and disgruntled when certain things had gone wrong or something vexing had been done by one of the tenants, but never before had she seen him filled with such ire, let alone have it directed at her.

 _“What in the seven hells do you think you’re doing?”_ had been the words that he had uttered to her first. His voice was quiet, but every word was spoken with a stiltedness that seemed to come from him having to restrain his rage.

Sansa’s mouth fell open, but she found herself mute in the face of such fury. She would have continued standing there, floundering, had Rhaenys not stepped in.

 _“I’m sure this is all just a mistake, Jon. If you can –“_ she began as she placed a calming hand on his arm, but she was immediately cut off when Jon irritably shook free of her clutches.

He ignored his sister’s attempt at mediating as he approached Sansa with a ferocity in his stride that Sansa felt in the very marrow of her bones with every step he took towards her. He stopped less than a foot away and stared at her hard with his lips pursed and his hands balled into fists at his side.

 _“I don’t care what you were_ planning _, you_ will _go back upstairs,_ immediately _, and you will change out of that fucking costume. Do you hear me, Sansa?”_

Sansa had gasped at the sharp profanity that he practically spat as her, as well as the rage that accompanied it. Her breath began to quake as a small whimper got caught in the back of her throat. In that moment, all she wanted was to do was to apologize and ask him what she had done to make him so furious, but every time she opened her mouth, she found herself choking on the emotions and her tears. Regardless of all the effort she had placed in the dress, she would have gladly ripped it off right then and there to get rid of that look in his eyes. Jon gave her little time to act, however, for after delivering his command, he seemed to find it impossible to even look her way, which is why he avoided looking at her altogether by turning his back to her and walking away.

As soon as his back was turned to her, Sansa found a sob slipping past the lump in her throat. In spite of the loathing she knew she would be greeted with, she reached her hand out for his retreating back, desperate to apologize again and to ask what she had done wrong. Both Rhaenys and Gilly intervened by placing themselves in her path. Their hands on her shoulders broke through her strange dazed state, and with Jon out of her grasp, all she could do was cry. She was practically boneless in the two women’s arms as they led her back toward the stairs, her soft whimpers and cries echoing off the marble of the floor and the stone walls, most likely echoing directly into Jon’s ear. Still, he made no move to come to her and comfort her in her sorrowful state as he continued walking off in the opposite direction, and that just made her cry even harder. It was only as she started ascending the steps that she looked out and noted that both Jorah and Doreah were standing outside the dining room, both staring coldly at her, having seen the entire debacle. Sansa swore she saw a smirk on the latter’s lips, though the former remained forever-cold and solemn, his judgment only reflected in his eyes.

Her good-sister and Gilly both tried to comfort her by making it seem like the whole situation was nothing as they led her back into her room and sat her on her bed. Gilly set to work finding another dress for Sansa to wear, while Rhaenys tried to cheer Sansa up with gentle shots at Willas and his utter helplessness at getting him ready for the masquerade. It was only when Sansa had continued to stare sightlessly at the wall with tears still coming down her face that she finally told Sansa of how the late Lady Targaryen had worn the very same costume that Sansa had picked, and that it was the one she wore shortly before she died in a boating accident a few short months after.

Overcome with the new information, Sansa had only cried harder for a few minutes after as she realized the immensity of her error. She had wanted to stay in for the rest of the evening, but both Gilly and Rhaenys had told her that such behavior would only cause a stir amongst the guests and it would look bad for everyone at Dragonstone. They had helped her slip on one of her newly purchased evening dresses: a dark blue number they claimed brought out the blue in her eyes. It was a beautiful dress, but it hardly matched the atmosphere or extravagance and grandeur that the masquerade was meant to invoke in the guests., but at that point she couldn’t care less whether she fit in or not. She refused to wear that mask that had gone with her pervious costume, so, despite Gilly and Rhaenys doing their damnedest to wipe away all traces of tears, the hollow face of misery and sadness served as her mask that night.

For everyone’s sakes, including Jon’s, Sansa forced herself to sit through the extravagant dinner that Doreah had chosen the menu for, though Sansa barely touched her food. Jon was seated next to her at the table, but he had barely looked at her, and only gave a sparing word here and there to prevent any onlookers from seeing they were quarreling. Still, Sansa doubted such a ruse really worked. She was almost certain that everyone was looking at her and could see how much of a failure she was during that time, and all she wanted was to get away. After dinner, she stuck close to Rhaenys’s side, and after an hour into the actual dancing, she found that she had borne enough of the burden to make her escape, and so she did; slipping back into her room where she shed everything before she fell crying on her vanity, where she would spend the rest of the night.

The feeling of restlessness returned with a vengeance as Sansa’s thoughts returned to the present. Now, desperate to escape her thoughts as much as her situation, she went back to her pacing, her legs moving swiftly as her feet wore holes into the carpet. Her mind was equally disquiet as her limbs, filled with worries, accusations, fears, and indecisions. _How can someone look so furious and still want the person responsible for their fury to remain by their side? What’s he playing at?_

 _Why is he be so determined to come with me?_ Sansa silently questioned herself with an irritated huff rushing out of her mouth. _Why can’t he just let me go?_

As if her thoughts had summoned him, there was a soft knock on Sansa’s door, and she knew that it was Jon returning. Sansa stopped pacing and positioned herself back in front of the window before calling out for him to enter. She silently commended herself for keeping her voice steady despite the absolute chaos that she embodied at that moment. She prayed that the helter-skelter would be dealt with soon so she could finally give her frazzled, war-torn body its much needed rest.

Jon entered, and as soon as his eyes took her in, a soft but wary smile crossed his lips. He had a covered tray of food in his hands that he set on table near the foot of her bed, before he came and stood beside her, turning his stare out the window and the storm. Sansa turned her eyes to him, keeping her gaze fixed on his profile. She couldn’t help but drink in the sharp distinction of his appearance now and the one from her memories of the night before. Gone was the tension and the anger, and now stood a man who looked calm, almost relaxed; definitely not something she would expect from a man who would be leaving his lands to follow after a desperate, freedom-seeking wife. Then again, he wasn’t going to be doing that, so she doubted that he would continue looking this way once she was finished with him. Now seemed as good a time as any to get it over with.

“How did all our dinner guests take me not coming down?” she questioned quietly, all while figuring out a way to subtly segue into what she needed to address with him.

“They all accepted the excuse of you feeling ill, though I _did_ have to forbid both Rhaenys and Gilly from coming up to see you,” Jon replied, the corner of his lip tipping up. He turned his face to hers and gave her another twitch of the lips. “They were insistent on seeing you, which I could not fault them for, obviously, but I managed to keep them away by telling them that they could see you at breakfast. I hope that was all right.”

“That’s fine,” she conceded with a shrug. She could use the last meal with them as a means of wishing two of her closest allies goodbye and telling them where she was going. It would make Jon’s task a little easier in the wake of what would come after she left, which brought her back to the task at hand.

“Did you talk to Sam?” she asked him carefully, watching his face closely in hopes of garnering any clue as to what he was really feeling about all of this and the possibility of leaving his home behind.

He remained frustratingly impassive as he turned his gaze back to the window to stare out just as lightning split through the sky and illuminated the waves hitting the beach.

“I told him that I wanted him to come to my office tomorrow morning. I didn’t think it necessary to tell the dinner party of my plans right away; at least, not until I got everything ironed out with him on how things will be managed while I’m gone.”

Releasing the breath that she had not realized she had been holding in anticipation of his answer, Sansa could not stop the relieved smile from spreading across her face.

Jon turned his face to hers once more and he looked at the happy expression on her face with furrowed brows. Tilting his head to the side as he continued staring at her reaction, he asked: “Why does that make you so happy?”

Sansa immediately schooled her expression back into an emotionless mask before addressing him, avoiding the way his penetrating gaze worked at her nerves. “I’m just pleased that you won’t have to worry about taking anything back when he comes to see you.”

With his eyebrow now cocked, Jon turned his entire body toward her with his arms folded across his chest. “What, exactly, would I have had to take back, Sansa?”

Sansa reluctantly turned her body to his and clasped her hands tightly in front of her as she took in a deep breath. “Well… I’ve come to the decision that I don’t want you to come with me when I leave.”

Expecting him to lose his calm, she was a bit disturbed when she saw a lack of any noticeable reaction on his face as he just stared at her solemnly with a tense silence building up between them. It was only when she found herself opening her mouth in her desperation to fill the void that she felt opening between them that he finally responded, though his voice still remained infuriatingly blasé.

“Is that so?”

Unnerved by the utter lack of passion in his responses, and his maddeningly restrained expression, Sansa mutely nodded her head in affirmation and bowed her head to avoid having to see the disappointment in his eyes. But his next response were still spoken in that exasperatingly neutral tone.

“Why?”

“Because…“ Sansa started before dropping off with a huff. Her cheeks became flushed with frustration from his nonreaction. She tried to shake it off as she made a second attempt to respond: “Because I don’t think that our paths are meant to be the same moving forward, Jon. It’s in both of our best interests to just part ways here before we end up hurting each other irreparably further down the line.”

Jon took a step toward her, closing the gaping distance between them, and it took every ounce of restraint in Sansa’s body not to take a retreating step back. Luckily, he stopped with ample space between them, leaving her room to still think and focus, though the new haze of melancholy that seemed to be coming off of him spanned the distance between them and embedded itself in her chest.

“You said you never felt like you belonged _here_ in Dragonstone. You never said that you don’t belong with me.”

“I didn’t think I needed to. I thought it was already explicitly implied.”

“How so?”

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?” Sansa words were filed an exasperated tone that was meant to temper the effect that the sadness in Jon’s voice was having on her, but it still infiltrated her space, both confusing her and pulling at her heart strings. It was a bit maddening.

His eyes were fixed on hers, and that sad, dejectedness in his voice appeared in the grey depths of his eyes, creating a strange haze that lingered around him. “If it’s not too much to ask, I wouldn’t mind an explanation.”

“You are the lord of Dragonstone, Jon. The island and the people here are under your power and protection, and so that means that _you_ are Dragonstone.”

Jon huffed. “I am _me_ , Sansa. I am not this island or this manor, and they’re not me. It’s not like back in the old days where I have to guard the damn thing from invaders or that I have to protect the land for the king. I’m the lord of this island, but in this day and age, that’s nothing more than a title. I can come and go as I please, and I plan to, if leaving is what you still want. You are my wife, after all, and where you go, I’ll follow.”

Sansa rolled her eyes to the ceiling as her sympathies for her Jon vanished at his uttering of that one word that had become a trigger for her anger.

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

“And why should I when it’s true?” he snapped back, seemingly picking up her disdain for the title he insisted on attaching to her.

Sansa temper flared. “Don’t play coy with me, Jon Targaryen. Out of the two of us, you _know_ what it is to be truly married to someone. I shouldn’t have to _clarify_ it for you.”

“The words I said to you in front of the septon are words that I consider precious, and I said them expecting to uphold them,” Jon replied solemnly, his arms still folded in front of him in his own show of defiance.

“Is that so?” Sansa arched a scarlet eyebrow, her anger simmering under her flushed skin. His stubbornness incited a strange new desire to be cutting, and so she chose to do so with the words she spouted off next: “Well, as I see it, with the way of things between us, I’m almost certain that my uncle could annul our marriage easily, and he would probably be more than happy to do so.”

She could tell that her words hit their mark when all signs of calmness vanished from Jon’s face behind a wall of stony anger. His eyes narrowed into slits as his breathing grew audibly heavier. The skin on his cheeks not concealed behind his beard was visibly flushed as he glared at her coldly.

“I would kill your uncle before he could lift his pen.” His voice sounded low and gravelly, resembling what Sansa assumed a growling predator would sound like just before it lunged for its prey’s throat. Oddly, she was not cowed in the least by his open ire. If anything, it called to her own fury, making her want to bare her gnashing teeth to him. She was no prey, after all; she was a snarling wolf.

“Petyr wouldn’t be easy to kill, and even if you succeeded, you would spend the rest of your days in a prison cell for taking his life. It would be such a waste of your life, especially when done for a marriage that was never a real union.”

“They’d have to find his body in order to charge me for murder, and considering I have no intention of losing a moment of my freedom for that man, I would merely have to ensure they never found him. There’s plenty of places and ways a body can disappear after all, Sansa,” he spat out with a chillingly solemn tone, considering what he was saying.

The way he spoke so casually about killing and hiding the body, so self-assured, penetrated Sansa’s skin and slithered into her bones and up her spine, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. Even though she hated Petyr with every fiber of her being, the thought of Jon murdering him and disposing of him brought her little satisfaction and only made her feel immensely troubled with Jon’s declaration.

She wasn’t sure what it was that Jon saw on her face, but his cold, angry exterior deteriorated into that previous melancholy-filled state as he stepped away from her and buried his hands in his hair. He turned and made his way to the fireplace where he hunched against the mantle with both weariness and defeat in his posture.

“You don’t have to worry about me ending his life, Sansa, because I have no intention of letting him anywhere near you or our marriage,” he professed firmly with his back faced toward her. “If you’re thinking that I’m going to just stand back while you attempt to annul our marriage, I can assure you that I will not be compliant. I have no intention of releasing you from being my wife.”

Just like a switch being flipped, Sansa was once back in that blindingly furious state. Her hands became balled into fists, and despite never being a violent person, she could not help but wonder what it would feel like to pound them against Jon’s back. The desire was so strong, she had to bite it back behind teeth that were grinding so hard that her jaw actually clicked from how hard she clenched it.

“Why are you so set on doing this, Jon? Does what I want not count at all in this, or are you, like all the other people who came before you, bound and determined to control every facet of my life to the point that I have no control whatsoever?”

“I have yet to hear a good reason why this union should be dissolved or why you’re so determined to escape it, Sansa, so until you can provide that to me, I will not hear of a dissolution,” he declared sternly, his posture growing visibly rigid at his place in front of the fire. There was indignance laced in his voice, but the pervading sadness overpowered it to the point that Sansa questioned whether she heard it or not. His current state was a puzzle to her: he appeared to understand that their relationship was not happy or copacetic, but there was a stubborn crossness that was pushing him to fight her on it.

 _He’s going to make me say it_. The thought came hurdling to the forefront of her mind, making her body go stiff with fear at the mere thought of having to confess her true feelings in order to be free of them. _I will never forgive him for this_ , she then silently proclaimed to herself, while in the back of her mind, she realized that that may be a blessing considering what she was about to confess and to whom.

Sansa’s feet felt like they were encased in lead as she slowly made her way to Jon, who was still propped against the mantle, staring into the flames. When she was within arm’s reach she stopped advancing and slowly reached her arm out to him. She noticed her hand was visibly shaking as it hovered over his shoulder – with fear, with anxiety, with _purpose_ , she wasn’t quite sure – but after flexing the hesitance out of them, she placed them gently on the tweed material that was warm under her fingertips from the heat of his body.

Jon’s back tensed for a second under her hand, making Sansa second guess touching him. She moved to remove her hand, but she was shocked when Jon’s fingers wrapped around her own and placed it back on his shoulder where he covered it with his own. Under his grip, she could feel those mystifying callouses on his palms that she had never expected to feel on his hands. He was a lord, after all, and it seemed something of a contradiction that his hands felt like ones that belonged to someone who had actually worked to build something or make something grow instead of the hands of one who was expected to stand back to instruct and oversee the work being done. His touch was a contrast to Petyr’s, whose hands were almost as soft as a woman’s – unused to the idea of working with anything other than a pen and or a limp shake of a hand in backhanded deals.

With Jon’s hand on hers, Sansa was trapped, but it was a trap that she would have liked to be lost in instead of escaping. For so long, she yearned for touch – for some kind of affirmation that her feelings weren’t completely one-sided – and yet even when there were moments where Jon would touch her: hold her hand, brush a piece of hair behind her ear, or kiss her cheek or brow; she had never really felt that any of those moments compared to the one she was in now. With his hand on hers now, she felt like he was actually trying to say something to her. He was asking her to stay, and even with her convictions screaming at her that that could no longer be an option, it felt good to actually feel something from him.

“Jon,” she finally said, breaking the silence after a few moments of companionable silence. “I really need to tell you something. It… well, it may make you uncomfortable to hear it, but I feel that it needs to be said, especially if you want me to explain why I can’t be your wife any longer.”

She felt him squeeze her hand briefly after she spoke before he lifted it from his shoulder while he turned around. She expected him to relinquish his hold on her, but even when he was facing her once more, her hand remained grasped tightly in his, as if he thought she would escape if he let her go. The look on his face: his lips pursed in a grim frown and his eyes narrowed as they stared hard at the ground, looked a bit grim and apprehensive, verging on fearful. It was as if he was attempting to put on a brave face while waiting for the death blow. It was a bit peculiar that he would react in such a way – like his entire existence was in her grasp – because she didn’t think she had that kind of power over him.

“Do you remember what I told you when you first proposed that I marry you in order to come with you to Dragonstone instead of leaving back to Braavos with Lysa?”

Jon lifted his eyes as his brows rose in surprise at her question, which seemed to be the furthest thing from what he expected her to say.. He paused for a moment, just staring at her curiously, before it seemed to dawn on him that she was waiting for him to answer her.

“Y-You mean, after you assumed that I was playing a horrible joke on you?” he questioned lightly, but the humor failed to permeate the thick blanket of tension that filled the space between them. He seemed to understand that because his next response was addressed with a more solemn tone to her hand still in his. “You told me that you would be the happiest girl in the world, coming back to Dragonstone as my wife.”

Swallowing the urge to cry again at the memory of the naïve girl she was back then, Sansa forced her face to remain impassive as she studied Jon’s reaction solemnly. “Do you know why I said that, Jon?”

He sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand as he replied: “What other reason could there be, other than the fact that it meant that you would finally be free of those soul-sucking leeches that called themselves your guardians.”

Pulling her hand back from him, Sansa took a step back and wrapped her arms around herself. Willing herself not to feel the pain at him leaving out the fact that she had cared for him deeply from his answer, she tried to prod him on. “Is that the only reason why you think I agreed?”

“Well, it was a good enough reason in and of itself, wasn’t it? I mean, meeting your uncle after being acquainted with your aunt, it was hard for me not to imagine the kind of life you were living with them, and it more than explained why you wanted to get away by any means necessary. I guess, given our current situation, your life here wasn’t good enough to keep you out of their filthy clutches.”

“You’re missing one very crucial piece of the puzzle, Jon.” She couldn’t help but feel her irritation expand inside of her at the fact that she couldn’t quite puzzle out if he was being deliberately obtuse or if it was genuine ignorance on what she was attempting to intimate to him. _He_ has _to know how I feel. How could he not?_

“And that is…?”

Sansa inhaled sharply as she studied Jon closely only to find that he looked to be seriously anticipating her answer. Her indignation was almost all-consuming at the fact that he seemed sincerely oblivious to what she was trying to allude to. He was like a blank, brick wall, and with her hands balling into fists against her arms, she found herself wanting to tear it all down. _How could he not have seen how I feel?_

“Are you… are you being serious, or are you purposely diverting the conversation because you know what I’m about to say?” she demanded, her voice rising to the point that it sounded almost shrill to her ears. If he was playing at not knowing her feelings, he was displaying a cruelty that went beyond anything Petyr ever exerted over her.

Jon’s brows furrowed in genuine befuddlement as he stared at her face and took in what Sansa could only imagine was a woman openly emitting wrath in waves. “I don’t think my question was chiding or joking in the least, Sansa. I don’t understand why anything I’ve said thus far has made you so angry when I’ve done nothing but answer your questions truthfully.”

“So, you’re saying that you were completely unaware of the fact that how I felt about my aunt and uncle was the furthest thing from the mind when I agreed to marry you?” she whimpered, her voice filled with anguish and anger in the face of what she was exposing to him. “You didn’t realize that the biggest reason why I was so happy to agree to being your wife was because previous to your proposal, the thought of being apart from you was nearly more than I could bear? That even though our relationship had spanned two measly weeks – a blink in the eye in the history of things – you had engrained yourself into my heart to the point that I thought it was going to stop beating when I realized that Lysa and I were returning to Braavos, and that I would possibly never see your face again? That you were oblivious to the fact that you asking me to become your wife was the lifeline I needed because it meant that I would never have to leave your side again? Even if it wasn’t a true marriage, holding the title of being “Jon Targaryen’s wife” would have given me ample reason to forever be with you to the end of my days.”

Jon’s eyes grew slowly wider with every question she threw at him, and by the end, his eyes were almost perfect circles. His hands escaped his pockets and fell limp at his side as he just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, staring at her face while Sansa allowed her bare soul to linger in the air between them. Her breaths grew heavier the longer the silence continued as she tried to anticipate how he would respond. The fact that he looked like a fish with his mouth opening and closing around words he couldn’t seem to form properly made Sansa both want to laugh and cry.

“D-Do you really mean that?” he finally asked. The way his words stumbled from his mouth was something she would have found endearing had her heart not been so exposed and vulnerable.

“How could you possibly think that I would lie about something like that, Jon? Why else do you think I would bear the discomfort of living in these cold walls for so long if it wasn’t for the fact that I loved the owner of those walls with every fiber of my being?” she bit out sorrowfully, her words cracking under the torrent of emotion that had crashed all around her. “My aunt always said I was a stupid girl, and I realize now that she was right! I _am_ a stupid girl who believed in stupid dreams because I once thought that my heart could be cherished by you. But now, I’m realizing that I was wrong because even though I was offering my heart to you every day for the past six months, it looks like you were completely oblivious. I’ve been an utter fool, and –“

Before she could utter another word, Jon crossed the distance between them in two swift strides and had his hands on her face. Those hands pulled her closer to him just as his lips came crashing down on hers, sealing away every word that she was going to say with his and stealing away every breath from that she was about to breathe, yet at this point they weren’t so much stolen as she offered them freely, along with anything else she possessed, in return for his lips remaining pressed to hers. Her head was being pushed back by his, and she willingly complied, desperate to do anything to keep this part of him attached to her forever. She was lost in the moment, and she wanted to stay lost forever, to never be parted from him again. A thousand kisses like this one would never be enough. She wanted a million, a billion, _infinite_ kisses just like this from the man she loved more than anything else in the universe.

_But does he love me? Does he truly, or has he just realized that he’s obtained another tool to keep me trapped here?_

Her heart begged for those thoughts to go away, to let her enjoy this moment that she had been dreaming of since she realized that Jon Targaryen was everything she wanted in a husband, but once the thoughts were there, the more insistent they fought to the forefront of her brain until the thought was practically a scream in her ears. No matter how badly she wanted to surrender to more kisses and more touches, the invading questions demanded answers, and her original thoughts demanded to be spoken.

Reaching trembling hands up, Sansa placed them on Jon’s shoulders, intending to push him away, but it was just at that moment that Jon tilted her head to the side and let his lips stray from her lips to her chin and then further down to her neck. Her hands, instead of pushing him away, grasped at the material of his jacket, taking in handfuls of the material in order to pull him closer and hold him tighter to her instead, desperate to feel more of this tenderness everywhere else on her being. This was everything she had wanted for so long, and she was getting it, and she just wanted to lose herself in it all. To lose herself in him.

_But is he capable of losing himself in me? Or am I just a warm body that he can imagine is someone else?_

Her emotions were a bevy of contradicting emotions, but it was her self-preservation that won out in the end. She hadn’t told Jon this for this particular reaction; she had been about to tell him the truth of things, and despite this turn of events, that truth was still very true. Which meant her weakness could no longer be indulged, regardless of how her body screamed to let things be.

“Jon, stop,” she commanded him pleadingly, her words whispered but steady despite the motivation behind it being far from it.

To her misery and her relief, he obeyed right away, but there was an impatient frown on his lips, like he was irritated that he had to comply.

In order to give herself room to breathe and organize her emotions again, Sansa gently pushed him back, and was thankful again when she didn’t resist and even retreated back, yet his expression grew from impatient to sorrowful as he pulled further away from her. A string felt like it had attached her torso to his, begging her to go to him, but Sansa resisted the feeling by taking another retreating step back until there was plenty of space between them to keep her from lunging for him.

Sansa placed a hand over her heart, begging it to calm inside her chest as she sucked in deep multiple breaths. It took longer than she hoped, getting herself in order, but she was at least pleased to see that it took an equally long time for Jon to get himself pulled together, too. Once both of their chests leveled back down, and they were no longer fighting to catch their breaths, Sansa chose to break the silence first.

“I didn’t tell you how I felt because I expected you to do… _that_ ,” she began, her face suddenly heated and flushed. Now that it was done, she found herself unable to believe that Jon had just kissed her, and that he had done it _passionately_ , but it was something that she had to force her mind past in order to get her point across.

Jon’s eyes narrowed and his lips turned down in a frown at her words. “Did you not enjoy it _?’”_ he questioned gruffly; a single brow quirked up in challenge.

Sansa felt her face grow even more flushed and once again forced herself to push off the effect. “I did _,_ ” she confessed. “But… not even… _that_ … what we just did, is enough to make me to stay, Jon.”

The self-satisfied smirk that touched his lips at her initial response, vanished instantly at the latter. He started to advance on her, but Sansa held her hand up, begging him to stay back. She didn’t think she could bear him being in her space again. He once again stopped, but she could tell that he was torn, obeying her plea.

“How can you say what you said and then kiss me the way you did, and then say you’re still determined to leave?” he bit out impatiently.

Sansa inhaled deeply and wrapped her arms defensively around herslef once more, hugging herself in order to keep herself together. “Believe it or not, Jon, but it’s _because_ of the way I feel for you that I can’t stay here with you or allow you to leave with me,” she answered quietly, unable to get herself to make herself speak the words any louder than the whisper her voice had become.

Jon’s nostrils flared as he raised his hand to pull at his hair in frustration. “What are you even saying?”

“I’m saying that it’s _because_ I love you with every fiber of my being that I can’t stick around any longer!” she snapped back, desperate for him to see what she was trying to say. “Loving you with the intensity of the love I have for you is only going to tear me into pieces the longer I’m here with you. Can’t you see that?”

“You’re not making sense, Sansa,” Jon proclaimed, still befuddled by her words, which only frustrated Sansa further because he still didn’t see what she needed him to.

“I don’t want to be in love with a man who can’t love me back, Jon, but since I’ve already given my heart to you and there’s no chance that I can get it back, I have to get as far away as I can so I don’t have to watch you trounce on it every time you compare the silly little wife that you have now to the one you had before – the one who will always possess a part of you that I can never touch.”

She was staring at the ground when she made that declaration, but when she looked up, she found herself startled to see Jon’s face having gone bone white, like the blood had vanished from his face in less than a second. His eyes were wide, but they were also focused on her in an accusing glare.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Sansa,” he said, his head shaking as if he could rid himself of her words. “Why would you bring _her_ up?”

Seeing such a reaction from him only seemed to prove her theory right. At the bare mention of _her_ , he seemed to become a whole different person, someone determined to lock away all mentions memories of the woman who had been his wife as if he could keep all of it to himself. Such a thought pushed Sansa to fight back so he could see what he was doing to her and why she couldn’t linger under such an overpowering influence as the ghost he clung to so desperately.

“ _She_ is the reason why I can’t stay with you, Jon,” she argued vehemently. “From the moment I attached myself to you, everyone has always compared me to the one who held the title before me, and it’s not hard to see that they’ve all found me to be inadequate in the great Lady Targaryen’s shadow. I can’t run a household like she did; I can’t throw a party the way she did; I can’t interact with the tenants the way she did; and I can’t make my husband love me with a lingering passion the way she did.”

Jon didn’t reply, but he continued to shake his head like he could pretend like she wasn’t speaking at all, but that just made Sansa try harder to make him see.

“Every time I’ve been found wanting when compared to her, I’ve been able to brush it aside because I’m not too proud to admit when someone is better at something than I am. But when I come up wanting in _your_ eyes when compared to her, I find that it’s too much to bear. I don’t care that she was a better lady, a better hostess, or a better socialite, or any of the other infinite ways in which she was a better person than me. What I _do_ care about is that she was the one who came before me in stealing your heart, and she didn’t have the courtesy of relinquishing it when she died. Just like she holds all the adoration and admiration of everyone she ever came in contact with, she continues to hold onto your heart and soul, and considering that that’s all I’ve ever wanted since I met you, I’ve come to the harsh realization that I’m going to tear myself into pieces fighting for something that you can never give me because you’ve already lost it to another.”

“Stop saying that, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jon cried out furiously, pointing a commanding finger at her.

“I’m just telling you the truth I’ve been forced to face from the moment I set foot on this gods-forsaken island, Jon! I’ve seen it every time your former wife is so much as alluded to and I see a part of you die right in front of my eyes. I’m not the only one she haunts, after all, but whereas I’m haunted by a shadow, you’re haunted by a memory – one that you lived with and cherished fiercely. She’s the one that you loved and lost, and she’s the one who casts the shadow that I can never escape no matter how hard I try – “

“You’re wrong,” Jon cried out, shaking his head as he started pacing in front of the fire, both his hands buried in his hair. “Stop talking about her. You don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Seeing him being tormented, Sansa felt the tears she had been fighting back win the battle against her will. They slid in seemingly endless streams down her face as she watched the man that she loved face the ghost that she had been haunted by for months. The amount of turmoil that seemed to take hold, made Sansa feel like he was losing the battle, and that just broke her heart further.

“I wish she hadn’t died, Jon,” she cried sorrowfully to his back. “Not just for you and your happiness, but because I would have liked to have seen the woman who holds your heart in a vice and refuses to let go.”

“Stop, stop, stop,” Jon repeated, but his words were now mere mumbles under his breath as he continued to pace while carding trembling hands through his hair, as though attempting to avoid having to face her accusations.

Feeling helpless, Sansa found herself only crying harder until she was outright sobbing. “If only she were alive, I would gladly fight her for your heart. I would fight her until I was bloody and broken, and even then, I would continue fighting until I breathed my last breath because _at least_ I would know that there was a chance that I could win.

“But I can’t win against a ghost of a memory, Jon. That ghost will always have the part of you that I want and yet can never touch, and there’s no way I can battle against something like that. I would just destroy myself fighting an impossible foe, and no matter how much I love you, I can’t let myself fall into that trap. I-I-I just can’t, and I’m so sorry!”

It became almost impossible to talk after that because she soon found herself sobbing again, much harder than before. It was the kind of hard sobbing that made her battle for every breath. Her lungs burned from holding so much oxygen in, and yet they still refused to allow her to release it as they trapped it in her chest which felt like it was on the verge of bursting. Clutching at her stomach and throat, Sansa moaned miserably, realizing that her emotions had officially won control and were sending her right over a cliff and she couldn’t stop it no matter how hard she tried. Her body felt like it had completely betrayed her, and she was on the verge of dying right then and there, even as her cries were torn from her lungs as if her emotions decided that they were their due. She felt like she was being ripped apart into a thousand pieces with her legs collapsing beneath her. She was lucky that she was close enough to her window seat for it to catch her, or she was sure she would have ended up strewn all over the floor.

Just as she felt her vision growing dark from being unable to properly breathe, strong warm hands cupped her cheeks, forcing her face up. Jon’s concerned eyes filled her vision as he knelt down in front of her with her face still in his gentle but firm hold. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear them. She did, however, feel them with every soft breath that escaped his lips and caressed her skin. Even though she was unaware of what he was saying, his entire presence emanated a strong soothing that was expressed in his eyes and present in his touch that calmed the tumultuous storm that had taken over her. His presence was land amidst an unforgiving tempest.

Sansa regretted the fact that her mind was too fraught with keeping herself afloat above the turmoil that was her emotions to notice when Jon leaned forward and started kissing her face. She squeezed her eyes shut to take away one of her senses in an attempt to calm the rest of them, but she was still startled, all the same when she felt his soft, plush lips on her brow. Opening her eyes released a fresh batch of built-up tears that blurred her vision, but her lack of sight only seemed to intensify the feeling of his lips moving down to her cheek, even as she felt his hands running through her red tresses in a soothing caressing motion. His touches and his kisses were enough of a shock to her system to calm her frayed nerves down, and it was only then that she was finally able to hear the words he was whispering against her skin.

“Calm down, my darling girl, there’s no need to shed these precious tears of yours. You’ve shed more than you deserve, and I’m so sorry. None of this is your fault.”

She was still trembling from the toll the emotional episode had taken on her body, but Jon’s fingers running through her hair as well as his soft lips moving across her face, proved to be more effective in calming her than her futile attempts to control her emotions. As her sobs quieted to the rare hiccups and then finally the random stilted, trembling breath, she felt the ocean of tears start to ease before finally stopping altogether. Her body felt boneless from exhaustion, and she soon found herself careening forward, right into Jon’s open, waiting arms that were waiting to catch her. Though a small voice kept telling her to get control and move away, she was too exhausted to do anything else but close her eyes and press her temple against his shoulder.

“There, there, now, my beautiful, silly girl,” Jon whispered soothingly against her brow. “I’m sorry that I ever let you get to this point. You never should have had to bear this burden, and I’m sorry that I didn’t step in as soon as I saw you being overwhelmed. Had I known the reason for it, I would have stopped it in its tracks, even if it changed the way you looked at me, but better I bear the burden instead of you. My reluctance to tell you the truth is unforgivable, my love.”

It was his term of endearment that made Sansa flutter her tear-ridden lashes open before tilting her head up to look up into Jon’s face. Her confused expression was met with Jon’s thumbs wiping away the remaining tears on her cheeks as his lips once against lowered to her brow in a soft, loving kiss that sent warmth coursing through every single vein in her body.

Before Sansa could ask him to clarify what he meant, Jon reached out and grasped her right hand in his, which he then raised to press flat against his chest. For a moment she could only stare at her pale hand resting against the white linen of his shirt under his suit before she finally felt the beat of his heart against her palm. It was beating oddly fast, but the repeated thumps against her hand still managed to lull her into an almost serene calm.

“Do you feel that, love?” he asked softly, his voice beckoning her eyes back to his.

Not sure if she had her vocal capabilities in order, Sansa simply nodded.

Jon smiled warmly and pressed his palm against the back of her hand, pressing it harder against his chest. “Good, then you should know that from the moment I first laid eyes on you, every beat of my heart has belonged to you.”

The words reached her ears but they refused to permeate her brain, leaving her to stare blankly in response. Jon’s free hand rose up to smooth the lines away by her eyes and mouth as a wary, uncertain smile remained spread across his lips that made Sansa’s own heart flutter inside her chest.

“It’s true, my sweet girl,” he reiterated gently, chucking her under the chin as both a reprimand for her doubt and a sign of his affection. “I felt such an intense adoration for you from the start, Sansa. You were so innocent, and yet I could still sense the presence of steel underneath that porcelain, and I was enthralled. Never before had I ever felt so consumed by one who was so oblivious to their own power, and in spite of the fact I knew it was incredibly selfish of me, I knew that I needed you in my life, by my side, so I chose to pull you in whatever way I could.”

“Is that why you asked me to marry you?” Sansa’s voice was scratchy, coming out as barely a croak.

Jon nodded, his face growing solemn, as his thumb brushed over her chin and his eyes became fixated on her lips. Sansa swore she saw the desire in his eyes to kiss her again, and she knew that she wanted that, too, but she wanted to listen to him to explain himself more. Pushing away her own desire, she raised the hands from his chest and pressed her fingertips to his lips, preventing him from following through with his intent.

“Were you planning on asking me the whole time we were in Lys?”

Jon kissed the tips of her fingers before he gently pulled them back over his heart. “I confess, I didn’t really know how I was going to manage to keep you close. After you told me about your family, I initially considered making you my secretary just to get you away from them.”

Sansa frowned. In Lys, she would have agreed to anything he offered to get her out from under Lysa’s thumb. She had even thought that that was what Jon was proposing when he first offered to take her to Dragonstone. Looking back, she almost wished that he had. Yes, she was already smitten with him at the time of his proposal, but if had he hired her as a secretary, she would have been able to just admire him from afar and would have been able to talk herself out of her infatuation because they would always be separated by the barrier of status. She also wouldn’t have been forced under such scrutiny if she had been in the position of a secretary, instead of his wife, and she also would have known not to hope that he would reciprocate her love for him. It would have been such a less excruciating path; one that she would have gladly taken now if she could go back and receive such an offer.

“Then why didn’t you just ask me to be your secretary? I would have accepted the position, had you offered. Why did you ask me to be your wife instead?”

“Because I’m a cruel, selfish man, Sansa,” he answered quietly, cupping her cheek in his palm. “Despite the fact that I had a perfectly good reason to keep you close, I wanted you as more than some assistant. Even though I wasn’t sure that I was ever going to be worthy of you, I still wanted there to be that possibility that I would be able to love you the way that I always wanted. I would either have you as my wife or nothing at all, and I ended up bringing you into the dragons’ nest, where I hoped you wouldn’t mind being the light for me that fought away all the shadows and ghosts that have always lingered here.”

Sansa averted her eyes back to where her hand rested on his chest and where she once again felt the beating of his heart against her palm. She focused on the fast, but steady beat. If she were to believe the things he was confessing to her now, his heart was in her possession this whole time. She wanted so badly to believe him, but the pieces of the puzzle that made up the picture of her life thus far with him just didn’t seem to fit right with the pretty picture he was painting for her.

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

His voice pulled her eyes back to his where he was still gazing at her with the same warmth and yearning that made her entire body feel like molten magma: scorching hot and liquid. More than anything she just wanted his lips to cover hers again and make her forget, but Sansa was tired of letting her path remain uncertain. Leaving no longer seemed like the best option, but she needed more from him before she could really solidify staying with him.

“I just don’t understand how you could feel this way about me all this time… when…” she paused, still wary of this surge of information and emotion she had received in such a short amount of time, “…when I’ve always felt completely alone in my feelings.” She hated the accusing lilt that leaked into her voice, but his confession contrasted everything that she had thought she had known about Jon and their relationship, and it felt so abrupt in change that it was hard to wrap her head around it. “Why would you hide your feelings away when you knew how welcome they would be to me, who was always desperate for any sign of affection from you? Why would you keep your love away from me when you must have seen how desperately I wanted it, especially in this place that had made me feel unwanted and rejected? Why have you _lied_ to me all this time?”

A look of torment flashed across Jon’s face, darkening his grey eyes and turning his lips down into a deep frown. Sansa was tempted to reach up and smooth away the dark lines that appeared on his brow and by his lips, but Jon was suddenly lifting her back into the window seat before she could act on the impulse. Before she knew what he was doing, Jon was up and walking away from her, taking his warmth with him. Her hands, of their own volition, reached out to him, desperate to pull him back so she could wrap herself around him again, but she pulled back at the last second – somehow knowing that her touch would only worsen things for him. She also had her own dignity to fight for, and she could only do that if she demanded more answers from him.

“How do you expect me to believe you felt that way when you’ve shown me _nothing_ of those feelings the six whole months I’ve been here, Jon? Do you really expect me to think that you’ve felt anything for me, when you’ve kept me at a distance this whole time?”

He returned to pacing in front of the fire, his hands flexing, like he didn’t know what to do with them. “I-I-I couldn’t tell you how I felt… if I did, I would have had to let you in, and I couldn’t do that, Sansa.”

Sansa huffed, tired of the strange conundrums he kept throwing her way with every confession he gave.

“That doesn’t make sense, Jon! _You_ were the one who brought me into your life – brought me _here_ to your home. Why would you do that, _feeling the way that you do about me_ , and then let me think that you didn’t care? How cruel could you possibly be to do that to someone who loves you as much as I do?”

Jon sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, his eyes turned to the fire, unable to meet her demanding gaze.

“That’s just it, Sansa. I told myself that you didn’t love me – that you were just happy being here on Dragonstone, away from your family. As long as you were happy and safe, I let myself believe that that was all I needed – that that was all I _deserved_ from you.”

“But how could I be happy when the man I’ve loved has kept me locked out of his heart?”

He stopped pacing long enough to shoot her a soft, yearning look that seemed to place a hook around her naval, prodding her to go to him. She just barely managed to resist it. Still, her eyes drank in that open expression; the one that she had wanted to see on his face for so long.

“You were never locked out, Sansa. I just locked what I felt for you inside.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better?”

“I considered it a success, considering the alternative.” He turned his back to her as his eyes became reclaimed by the flames. His voice abruptly grew solemn, anxious, but more importantly defeated, as though he had come to a conclusion that he was going to lose no matter what came next.

“And what was the alternative, Jon?” Sansa pressed on, unable to allow herself to be cowed by his sudden turn in mood.

Jon smoothed his ruffled curls back and then let his hand linger on the back of his neck as he stared into the fire. “If I let you in, and I told you everything about me, I knew you wouldn’t love me… You probably wouldn’t even be able to _look_ at me, and I didn’t know if I could stand that.”

“So, you just kept that choice from me instead?”

“I thought you were happy here, and that you were making yourself a home, Sansa.”

“I don’t want Dragonstone to be my home, Jon. I never did. I wanted _you_ to be my home, and I wanted you to love me as much as I love you.”

Jon turned his head and beheld her solemnly, his eyes soft with the corners rising up in that gentle way that transformed his face into a thing of surreal beauty. She grabbed handfuls of her frock to stop herself from reaching out to him as he spoke in a gentle but determined tone. “I do, Sansa. I _do_ love you, more than you could every know.”

Her heart was pounding incessantly against her ribcage, desperate to be near him, but even with all of these new feelings and revelations, there was one thing that hadn’t been acknowledged and thus had not been changed in her own resolve.

“It’s because of _her_ , isn’t it? You kept your feelings at bay because you felt you were betraying her by loving someone who couldn’t measure up to her, didn’t you?” she questioned quietly, though saying it aloud made her feel like she wanted to vomit and scald her own skin in her shame. “Did you feel ashamed loving someone like me, after having loved someone like _her_ for so long?”

His grey eyes peered at her intensely as his jaw suddenly clenched. It was a strange reaction, but one that seemed par for the course whenever _she_ was mentioned. She needed that to be addressed.

“You keep saying things like that, but let me be clear that I love you. Sansa, with my _whole_ _heart._ There is nothing and no one else that I love more than you. My _heart_ belongs to you and no one else. I swear it on everything that I am as your husband that I’m telling you the truth.”

Sansa scoffed and reclined back; her arms now folded across her chest. “I wish I could believe that, but it doesn’t make sense, Jon. How could I have your whole heart when I came after _her_ – the one who made the heaping crater that I have pathetically tried to fill. Forgive me for failing to accept your words when you loved someone like _her_ before me.”

Shaking his head furiously, Jon released a chilling laugh that sent a shiver down Sansa’s spine.

“ _Loved_ her?” he barked out bitterly before laughing again in a way that Sansa could only describe as “maniacal.” “How could anyone love someone who lacked a heart and the ability to care about anyone but herself?” He laughed yet again, making Sansa want to clamp her hand over his mouth to silence the horrible sound forever, but Jon was too lost in his own thoughts to see her discomfort. “I _never_ loved that woman. Everything was a game to her, and everyone was just a piece that she could manipulate and maneuver to her liking. All she ever cared about was Dragonstone, and even then, after she had it all under her power, all she wanted was to see everything _burn._ ”

“You… you never loved her?” Sansa questioned, suddenly rising from her seat – her mind unable to move past that particular revelation though the rest of his words were slowly starting to don on her like a hammer being smashed against her senses. She went to him but stayed just out of his reach, not that he noticed – his eyes now focused intently on the flames in the fireplace. “Are you really saying that she wasn’t the woman everyone claims she was?”

“Of course she wasn’t! She knew just how to make everyone feel like they were the most important person in the room when she was talking to them, but as soon as their back was turned, she would belittle and denigrate their character to me, like I was supposed to feel the same. I loathed that woman with every fiber of my being from the moment I was forced to marry her to inherit this gods-forsaken island, and yet for the sake of this stupid manor and this title, I had to make it seem like she was my entire world and that our marriage was perfect. The only time I ever felt anything but disgust for her was when I watched her take her last breath, and even then, when I was able to get past the despair, the fury, and the horror, the only feeling I could feel was _relief_.”

Sansa’s mouth open at the torrent of new information she was given, but she felt her focus clinging to the last part of his statemen that had her feeling befuddled and confused. “H-h-how could you possibly have seen her breathe her last breath, Jon? She died in a boating accident on a night that you weren’t even at Dragonstone.”

Jon didn’t respond, his mind lost in his thoughts and memories as he stared deeply into the flames. His body was rigid, and from her place beside him, Sansa saw his eyes wide and full of misery and horror. He was _haunted._

“She was smiling when she finally died,” he said quietly, his words barely audible over the sound of the logs crackling under the intense heat of the fire. “She played her games until the very end, and she knew that even in death she would forever reign over me... never letting me live in peace.”

Sansa could not hold back her thoughts any longer. Moving forward, she grabbed Jon roughly by the shoulders, bunching the material of his jacket under her fingers and forcefully turned him around to face her.

“ _What_ are you saying, Jon? You’re not making sense, and you’re starting to scare me!”

Jon’s eyes slowly rose and reluctantly met hers, but there was still a lack of focus, which made the intense pools of grey suddenly look like a void, like he was still not seeing her. In that moment, he looked horribly crazed and forlorn but also very broken. Nevertheless, he still managed to utter words that would completely flip Sansa’s world upside down.

“She never died in a boating accident, Sansa. _I_ was the one who killed the previous Lady Targaryen.”

Just at that moment, the room became illuminated by a flash of lightning that nearly blinded Sansa with the intensity of the white light. Less than a second later, a deafening boom of thunder sounded in the room with a force that shook the very floors and walls, announcing that the storm, like the truth, had finally landed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI, I'm most likely not going to get the last part out before the movie comes out next week, but since I've decided that I'm not going to watch the movie anyway, I don't really feel the need to beat the deadline anymore anyway. The chap may be a bit delayed because I wanted to write a Jonsa fic for Halloween, but I guess it will all depend on my wriitng abilities and what inspiration comes. Thanks again for reading!


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